Nothing But Cabbage
by Melfice
Summary: Chef AU. "Cooking is like love; it should be entered into with abandon or not at all." - Harriet Van Horne
1. Chapter 1

**Nothing But Cabbage**

–

Chapter 1

"_There is no love sincerer than the love of food." ~George Bernard Shaw_

This story could start anywhere, but it doesn't start where it should – which is at the beginning. The beginning is on a Wednesday, in October, one year ago. It's on a cool morning, and the city is blanketed in soggy leaves and slippery pavement, the remnants of another long nightly shower that is becoming the soundtrack for the season. This story definitely doesn't start with the attractive young woman who bursts out of a nearby office building, bright yellow raincoat contrasting with stylish brown boots. Her arms are clutching a carefully wrapped stack of folders to her chest, with her umbrella tucked awkwardly underneath one arm, and all it takes is one wayward puddle to send her sliding directly into Stiles Stilinski.

Stiles doesn't see her until it's too late, because he's always late in some regard – always, perpetually. He's late to school today because he laid in bed for too long staring at the ceiling, until he glanced out the bedroom window in time to see the 720 bus rolling past his apartment from the stop down the street, and even then it had been with a distant sort of understanding that he had slowly realized that was his ride. So perhaps she is in a rush as well, with her arms too full of everything, but he's booking it down the sidewalk as fast as he can manage without spilling his coffee and it means their collision is almost entirely unavoidable in the scheme of things.

The young woman knocks both his coffee and his center of balance – and himself – onto the concrete in one fell swoop. His coffee ends up half down his front, vanishing into dark blue jeans but standing out miserably against the gray hoodie underneath his waterproof jacket, and the other half ends up rolling off the sidewalk and into the gutter – never to be seen again. The wet pavement soaks through the seat and legs of his jeans like he's wearing a sponge.

"Oh my god," she breathes out, like she is imagining this all as a horribly unfunny joke that she'll wake up from momentarily. There is increasing panic evident in her expression as she slowly realizes that this is actually her life, so perhaps this is a constant in her early morning schedule. She slips the load of files under one arm, umbrella falling uselessly onto the concrete, and awkwardly takes his right sleeve in a futile attempt at pulling him to his feet. "I'm so sorry! Are you all right? Oh my god, I'm seriously so sorry!"

Stiles manages to get to his feet, even with her attempt at help more a hinder than anything. His back is wet, all the way down to the ankles of his jeans, and the slow dawn of realization that he's going to be sitting in a classroom all day in wet clothes makes him seriously consider walking home and crawling back underneath his quilt. Surely college cannot possibly be this important; surely this is the universe's way of telling him to take the day off.

"Oh my god," she says, for the third time, and her face is scrunching at her nose as she regards the damage. "Your clothes – your coffee -"

"It's okay!" he reassures her, because it really is. His clothes will wash, will dry, and he can get more coffee. The woman looks more distraught that is really warranted, and his attempt at smiling only seems to make her more so. "No, seriously, it's really fine. Are you all right? You seem not all right."

"You are letting me buy you a new coffee, at the very least," she demands, and even as he opens his mouth to protest she is already curling her petite fingers around the sleeve of his jacket and pulling him down the sidewalk. He stumbles after her, because he thinks if he dug his heels down and refused to move she would probably fall over again and, honestly, if this makes her feel less horrible then he's all for that.

The tiny shop she drags him into is next to the bookstore. The name is in French, something with too many flourishes and accent marks, and she pushes the glass door open with her shoulder, a nervous smile on her lips. There are bells above the door that shimmer lightly when they stumble into the entrance, scuffing their shoes briefly against the floor mat in front of the door, and then the air is filled with warmth, the smell of coffee and sugar and yeast.

"Please sit," she insists, pushing him lightly into a chair and gesturing at him in a way that likely means something to her and no one else. "What kind would you like?"

He blinks at her, lost. "What?"

"Laura, you're tracking all over the floor," a middle aged woman at the counter says, voice heavily accented and a weird sort of resignation on her face – like she expects nothing less at this point. She regards Stiles for a moment, lips pursing tightly together, and then she asks, as though she would rather not know the answer, "What did you do to this man? Shove him in the gutter?"

The young woman in the yellow raincoat – who must be Laura – casts a quick glance skyward and turns her back on the woman, as though willing her out of existence, and focuses her attention back on Stiles and her mission.

"Coffee!" she says again, and her smile is warm. "I'm buying you coffee. Only-" and here she rummages around in the pockets of her raincoat, producing a crumpled five which she lays on the tiny table, "-only I have these interviews and I'm very seriously going to be late to the first one and I'm so, so sorry, but Alana will take very good care of you – just tell her whatever you want – and I'm sorry because this is _so rude, _but my uncle is going to have a hernia if I don't hire-" and then she's pausing, to produce a piece of printer paper from her purse. She hands the paper to him, and squeezes his arm encouragingly. "Actually, let me give this to you just in case you know anyone. We're opening in a week and I have no one. Please, just post it on your campus or – or anything. I will owe you for life. My phone number is on the bottom."

Stiles stares at the paper, and then at the money on the table, and then looks up at the girl (with what he hopes is an expression that accurately portrays his complete fucking _bafflement _at what is the strangest exchange in his life), only to find her rushing by him. She vanishes out the glass door in a flourish of chiming bells and a rush of cold air.

The woman at the counter, who must be Alana, huffs out another sigh and gestures towards the door. "Poor girl. Overworked," she says, by way of explanation. "Crazy, but nice."

It takes only minutes for him to get a hot cup of coffee, with steamed milk and no sugar, pressed into his hands in a cream colored paper coffee cup with the bakery's logo stamped on the side in pink. Alana also gives him a stack of napkins to dry off with and a Kraft paper bag that contains something soft, golden brown, and flaky. He tries to hand it back, because he doesn't eat breakfast and because he didn't ask for it regardless, but she sticks it in his coat pocket and brushes him out the door, asking if he isn't going to be late for school if he sticks around arguing over pastry.

The soggy napkins he throws away by the time he gets to the subway, feeling no more dry than he had before. It's half past seven and he's not going to make it to class on time, but as he settles into a corner seat and drinks his coffee, he finds he doesn't care much either way. There's very little waiting for him aside from another day of lectures and classes he's passing but not interested in.

This is his routine, anyway. Things will change as the day progresses. The first change will come about when he sticks his hand into the paper bag, pulls a piece of the croissant off and pops it into his mouth. He'll have the sort of revelation that is usually reserved for religious enlightenment or the moment you discover you're truly in love. Because the pastry tastes like nothing in his life he's ever had before – perfectly flaky, perfectly buttery and rich, and it settles lightly in his stomach in a way that belies the careful and considerate touch that went into making it. It's the first time he's eaten something that has made him close his eyes and sincerely lose track of himself, of his problems; the tension in his shoulder melting away, inconsequential and unimportant in the wake of a single moment of bliss.

It's only a croissant – one of many the bakery will sell that day – and it should not be life changing, but it is. Because in that moment Stiles eats the best thing he's ever had in his life, something that he chews slowly between his teeth and savors fully, and is simultaneously taken aback and renewed by the thought that something so small could have such an impact on his day. It means that when he finally glances at that piece of paper Laura forced upon his person, he's in the perfect mood and mindset to be presented with the nature of the flier: a help wanted listing for waitstaff at a brand new American bistro opening four blocks down from the cafe he'd just been at.

Which, honestly, the city needs another restaurant like it needs a natural disaster. He would normally ignore it, crumple it up in his backpack, but his day is already off kilter, and he's eaten the best pastry of his life, and the girl who had handed him the flier was strangely charming. So wherein normally he might not, he sends a text message to Laura's number ("Hey, it was cool running into you today lol. I'm actually unemployed right now – what's this bistro all about?") and, in contrast to what he thinks will happen, he gets a message back with an interview time and a smiley face.

He wears his best dress pants and something not-plaid, and steps over concrete dust and drywall sanders, in order for her to ask him a few pertinent questions about his availability and work experience.

"Your resume says you've worked fine dining before, in Maine?" she asks. "'Gordon's,' I believe it says here."

"Yeah, absolutely," Stiles replies, and he crosses his fingers and prays to whatever gods might be listening that they won't call any of the numbers listed – because Gordon's is a hardware store in Maine, not even within driving distance of what could be considered 'fine dining,' and he doesn't have even a modicum of experience. "I was a server at Gordon's for two years. Moved out here and, unfortunately, had to bid them 'adieu.'"

Laura is polite, and warm, and she doesn't call any of his references. For some reason she is taken with him from the moment she runs into him on the street, and he unknowingly carves himself a tiny place in heart that is typically reserved for her closest family members; he won't know this for a long time, but it does happen. She calls him two days later, to ask if he still wants the job and when can he come by to get his monogrammed apron and sign paperwork. Which is precisely how he ends up getting a job he has absolutely no right having, without any of the experience he should have in order to perform it moderately well. Actually, he's fairly certain that Laura realizes he is lying through his teeth at the interview, but she gives him a chance regardless and so he does his best to not stumble quite so terribly through the weeks of scheduled training.

By the time they open the doors he hasn't really gotten that much closer to opening a wine bottle without hitting himself in the chin, but Laura only smiles and says, ""You'll get it eventually. You're ridiculously charming, Stiles – and charming people sell wine, whether they can open it or not."

She's not wrong. Because Stiles breaks corks in wine necks, and he drops glasses and plates full of food, but his tables _love him. _It's a little disconcerting at first – okay, it's disconcerting forever, but it means they leave him frankly stupid amounts of money in that blessed little 'gratuity' area of the credit card receipts and he is absolutely okay with that. The money he makes at _Artichaut_ more than pays for his rent, and his accumulated debt, and leaves him with enough that he honestly isn't really sure what to do with it.

Which should be enough, honestly, but it's not. The work is fine – but it's just that; it's not challenging in the slightest. Actually that's not true, because Stiles is sort of a shitty server, but mostly because he doesn't feel like there are really any consequences to dropping plates and spilling soup – well, he could be fired, but it hasn't happened yet. Mostly he starts to wonder what he's doing with his life (again), and what he's trying to be and aspire to, and he realizes that answer is somewhere out of his reach. He's a college dropout with absolutely zero real talent and no real future...

Okay, or so he thinks. It's actually just his own melodramatic mind telling him that, as he finds out two and a half months after serving at _Artichaut_. Because it's on the two and a half month mark, on the day, that everything changes for the better. Actually, it's the second change – the first being running into Laura that day on the street - and it's the second one that really has the most impact.

Because Stiles definitely doesn't have any fine dining experience as a waiter, nor really any hospitality experience at all, but as it turns out their Garde Manger doesn't have any experience either – which leads to him and the sous chef, Derek, to devolve into a yelling match in the middle of the kitchen, in the middle of a Friday night dinner rush, over a salad.

The fight leads to some pretty choice words being exchanged, followed by the throwing of lettuce, and it ends with Stiles making his own god damned salad. He carts it out of the kitchen to the symphony of Derek verbally destroying the Garde Manger's talents and skills and general likeability as a human being (and, one would assume, also actually filing the paperwork needed to fire someone). Stiles' second trip into the kitchen leads him to find Lydia staring at the abandoned Garde Manger station in complete bafflement, which leads him to make the salads for her tables as well – and it really snowballs from there. He doesn't really know how the transition happens, just that at the end of the shift Derek hands him an apron and an address on where to get a chef's coat embroidered and tells him to show up at the ass crack of dawn to start on prep work.

The pay is only slightly worse (his wallet definitely feels the absence of the gratuity), but the work is far easier than dealing with picky clientele, and, if Stiles is honest with himself, it's work he's actually pretty damned good at. He's pretty much learning everything by the seat of his pants, with a push or a shove from the other crew – and maybe one or two extras from Derek, but it's gotten past the point of fumbling along and has somewhere along the line turned into actual experience. Because, despite his spiky exterior, Derek treats his kitchen staff like they're his gang or something, and it means that they adopt Stiles on one hundred percent. Which means that Stiles sometimes finds technique books, or gift cards to Sur La Table, or notes about when they change the soups and what that means for him, and he gets the feeling that everyone is looking out for him.

Which is good because, even if he does help him out, Derek is also a tyrant who is in charge of the kitchen a decent eighty percent of the time. He has an entire back of house staff to manage, an eccentric chef to please, and an ever-changing menu to prep and serve in dwindling hours; he doesn't have nearly enough time to teach Stiles what he should have spent three years in culinary school learning. So sometimes Danny shows him how to sharpen knives, and Scott 'accidentally' forgets his own prep work and helps Stiles chop the thousand locally sourced vegetables for that night's dinner, and sometimes Laura happens to burst into the kitchen with some terrible problem that Derek Absolutely Must See To At That Moment – which somehow always conveniently coincides with when Stiles is running behind and Derek is breathing down his neck impatiently. All kitchens are a dysfunctional family, but Stiles has grown fond of his in a way that surprises him.

All of this leads us to the third change, which is when Stiles realizes that he will some day die alone. He will die alone some day because there is some exasperatingly defective part of his brain – perhaps overworked, or in dire need of repair – that is hopelessly optimistic in the face of insurmountable obstacles. The grossly misplaced affection it generates is small enough to slink past his mental radar and let itself loose onto an unsuspecting world, where it will no doubt attach itself to whatever is most inconvenient for Stiles' life plans and goals. There are a slew of people he knows right off the top of his head who still hover somewhere between that line of 'totally out of his league' and 'might dabble with lesser mortals,' but his heart and his mind have been conspiring against him from day one and when they cart his emotions away they end up leaving them at the feet of Derek Hale.

For what it's worth, Stiles doesn't end up dying alone – but that is also not the start of this story.


	2. Chapter 2

** Nothing But Cabbage**

Chapter 2

"_Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends _

_to eat until he eats them." - Samuel Butler_

There is something to be said about Stiles' life that, when his phone starts ringing at four in the fucking morning, with Derek Hale's name on the display, he doesn't immediately throw himself (or the phone) out of the fourth floor window of his apartment. The world outside of his blankets is ridiculously crisp-cold and he manages to snake out just a hand to snatch the cellphone from the beside table; it vanishes underneath the blankets with him, back to the land of warmth and comfort.

"Hmm," he hums into the phone, and he remembers a time when there used be a pause as Derek tried to figure out if he was still asleep, but it's been a year and four days and, unfortunately, Stiles is not that difficult to figure out.

"Peter is changing the menu," Derek says, and he sounds far, far too awake for there not being any sunlight out yet. It almost sounds as though he's already at the restaurant, with the way his voice is echoing slightly through the speaker. He also, as is the norm, sounds completely indifferent towards the information he's relaying. "Be here at 5."

"This is hardly enough notice," Stiles mutters, half into the pillow and half into where his phone is pressing painfully against his face, but there's nothing on the other line but a 'click', and he knows Derek has hung up and moved on to whatever he's deemed more important. Stiles stares at the darkness of his pillows and sheets, crushing his face further into the softness and trying not to convince himself to go back to sleep. Outside the window there's the sound of a car or two passing by, but nothing else; it's dark, dark, and very sleepy.

He rolls over and kicks haphazardly at the blankets, until they've moved enough to uncover his face and half his chest, and the cool air very quickly makes itself an immediate bed partner. There's a text on his phone from Scott that is just a bunch of random button mashes – 'aisjdaijd' – and Stiles sends back 'yes', because he knows exactly how Scott feels. There's another text from Erica that is from three hours ago, asking if they're commuting together again, and he texts her back with an affirmative. He stares for a long two minutes at his ceiling and then slowly, slowly, slowly rolls himself out of bed.

The concrete floor is stupid-cold, and he can't remember where he put his house shoes, and he ends up half-hopping and half-running to the bathroom. He knocks over a chair and trips twice on his way, because he's actually still half asleep, but he makes it nonetheless. There is a pitiful amount of hot water – which turns to lukewarm water – which turns to a temperature that would not be unwelcome to, say, a _penguin, _and Stiles hates his apartment, and this city, and Derek, and everything and everyone. Well, not really, but in that moment – yes.

It takes twenty minutes to shower, and brush his teeth, and find clean clothes. He wears a coat over his white jacket, the one with his name embroidered right underneath '_Artichaut_', and manages to grab all his things – and not forget his keys or his subway pass – and get out the door early. He tries not to imagine all the extra time he could have been sleeping, or eating a bowl of cereal, or searching the classifieds for a job that didn't require getting up before the dawn of time.

Erica is in her usual spot, three blocks away, waiting. She's wrapped in a peacoat, and a scarf, and her hands are tucked into her pockets, and she looks miserable. There's a fairly good chance – seeing as how her text was from sometime around one in the morning – that she'd been out late, anticipating her usual eight am shift, and is now seriously rethinking her life and her choices and her will to live.

"I am _freezing_," she moans, and she latches onto his bicep while they walk to the subway. Which is pointless, because Stiles barely generates enough body heat for his own uses and definitely is not some sort of walking space heater. He'd point such information out, but he's too busy keeping an eye on their surroundings and trying not to feel like every menacing trash can is actually a murderer in wait; being out – in what is essentially the middle of the night – has a tendency to make him paranoid. Although, honestly, he's seen Erica take down men twice her size with one hand, so maybe he's worried for nothing.

There's some guy sleeping next to an ad for Vitamin Water, and one or two people milling about in scrubs, but otherwise the subway platform is very empty. The clock on the wall says they're five minutes early.

"So, I spent three hours at Shifty Eyes last night," Erica says, teeth chattering, "listening to Isaac moan about that dingdong you call a best friend."

"Scott?" Stiles asks, looking up from his phone, and in his defense it is very, very early and he hasn't had coffee yet. Erica still stares at him like his stupidity is causing her physical harm. "That's weird. I thought they got along."

Erica stares at him harder, mouth slightly agape, then shakes her head and stares at the train tracks. "Nevermind. It's not worth the effort."

It takes two more minutes for the train to arrive, and twenty minutes of stops-and-gos to get to the closest station near _Artichaut_. They stumble out onto the platform, and Erica pretends to not know who he is when his jacket gets caught in the turnstile, and the escalator is out so they get to make their way up the four sets of stairs.

There's a cafe – _Le Petite Cafe_ - a block from the station that they stop into every single morning they commute together. It's the same cafe Laura unknowingly introduced him to a year ago, with the most amazing croissants Stiles has ever put in his mouth, and the coffee is brewed so good that it makes his toes curl. Alana waves when Erica and he make their way in through the door, where they are also greeted by the smell of yeast and butter and coffee beans, and the tiny building is empty and warm and Stiles wants to curl up on the floor and sleep forever.

They go in often enough that it's clockwork: she puts their pastries in a to-go bag and her husband, who speaks absolutely no English and stares at everyone as though they are wielding baseball bats underneath their coats, fixes two paper cups of coffee. Sometimes – like today – Stiles raises three fingers, and the husband makes an extra cup of coffee. The gesture today earns him a betrayed, and disgusted, look from Erica.

"Seriously? You're getting him coffee?" she asks, lip curling. "He is the _enemy_ right now, Stilinski."

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer," Stiles replies.

Erica gives the French couple a sweet smile, taking her coffee and paper pastry bag, before turning to Stiles and scoffing. "I'm like the lead in some horrible sitcom. All the attractive men in my life are gay and in love with each other."

"_Excuse you_ and your assumptions about the hidden messages in my gifts of goodwill-"

"_Gay, gay, gay, gay-_"

It's another two blocks to the restaurant. The kitchen is mostly empty, although there's a light on in Peter's office and Laura is folding napkins into fans. The door to the walk-in is open, with empty boxes lining the walkway, and Stiles steps over them and dodges an empty cheese box that flies past his head.

Derek looks up from where he's cleaning and organizing – because they're expecting a delivery in an hour and he has some sort of intricate organization system that is really just better left to him to fiddle with – and doesn't so much as blink. "Put your stuff away. Peter has an entire list of things he needs from you."

"Good morning," Stiles chirps, as though Derek is an adult in Charlie Brown and all he says is so much wobbly noise. He extends one of the coffee cups and one of the white paper bags, which smells deliciously like flaky pastry. "I slept great, thanks. It's so nice of you to politely ask me to come in early. Seriously, glad to help out."

Derek stares at the coffee, eyes drifting slowly up to where Stiles is staring expectantly – and his face goes through at least four different versions of 'displeased' that it's still too early to really examine. He inhales sharply, as though preparing himself for something, and then he snatches the offered gifts and steps past Stiles to the 'U' shaped island of prep tables where his clipboard is waiting.

There's a barely audible, almost grumbled, "Thanks," that could totally be mistaken for the wind or the walk-in's motor grinding away, but Stiles has become well versed in this ritual and he doesn't stop the grin that works its way across his face. In the background, Erica pretends to gag herself with her index finger.

-/-

It is six thirty in the morning and Stiles has been carving radishes to look like mushrooms for almost an hour. It sounds a little like some sort of awful punishment, but apparently late last night Peter had decided that it was vital every salad on their prix fixe menu contain an adorable, hand carved radish mushroom, and Stiles has four hundred to get through before he can even think about getting started on the actually important list of tasks that is typically his 'busy work.'

He's carving radishes into mushrooms as fast as he possible can without also carving up his thumb, but it's slow work and he feels like he's already getting behind as the rest of the staff gets busy around him with preparing for dinner. The sea of radishes-turned-mushrooms laid out around him stare up at him mockingly, completely uncaring that he has a Capicola in the fridge that has been curing for over a month that is ready to be sliced.

There should be a law against this, really. Not that he went to culinary school, or spent years studying in France or what-have-you, but he's damned good for his age and he worked his way up the chain of command like anyone else, and there should be some sort of law that specifically prohibits relentless catering to the fanciful whims of batshit insane chefs. Not that Peter is always one or two bananas short of a bunch, but there has been more than one occasion when he has done something that Stiles considers reason enough to say he's _lost his damned mind_, but it could be up for debate.

(Although the one time he'd burst into the kitchen, five hours before dinner service, and informed them that he'd had a row with the seafood guy, over whether or not the fish on his truck were 'too fresh', which had apparently included calling someone's mother 'too fresh,' and that there would be no fish on the menu for the next foreseeable future had definitely ended in the unanimous decision that he was _off his rocker_. A genius, amazing culinary expert – but also _insane_.)

"Okay," Scott says, and 1) he's way too awake for six thirty in the morning, regardless of what time they all got there, and 2) he has that obnoxious sparkle in his eyes that means he's about to launch into poetry and romantic limericks and whatever else it is that people do to completely embarrass themselves when they fall in love. "So I've heard from a reliable source that her favorite fruit is peaches. What are the odds of Danny teaching me to make a Peach Melba?"

"I don't know," Stiles answers, paring knife working away at the unfortunate radish in his hand. "What are the odds I stab you in the throat for bringing up your love life at six in the morning?"

"These look great, by the way," Scott says, and his grin perseveres even in the face of bodily harm – god, cupid will someday pay for his sins – and Stiles' left eye twitches, completely out of his control, because, honestly, _these fucking radishes_. "Why are you making an army of radish mushrooms? Are we doing some sort of Super Mario themed salad I didn't know about?"

"They're for the prix fixe tonight, and, no, I don't know why," Stiles tosses another perfectly carved radish into the pile. "Probably because Peter is testing me and my will to live."

"Interesting," Scott says, nodding his head, but he's obviously not paying attention. His eyes are fixed across the room, where their pastry chef, Danny, is segregating his egg whites and egg yolks. Danny actually glances up then, like he can tell he's being watched, and is visibly caught off-guard to have Scott, wide eyed and enthusiastic, staring at him from across the room; he lifts his hand, in a very confused wave, and seems even more suspicious by the grin that breaks out on Scott's face.

Stiles thinks there should be a "no love-sick cooks in the kitchen rule," but that's probably why he's not in charge.

Fortunately he's saved by the sound of the back door opening and closing, which is followed shortly thereafter by Derek Hale's incredulous exclamation of, "McCall, _why aren't you in your station_?!"

Scott makes his way around the prep table so quickly he whacks his hip on the side, but it doesn't slow him down as he trips over himself to get back to his station. He moves like the hounds of hell are at his feet and, honestly, it's not that far from the truth.

To understand the delicate machinations of a kitchen you have to look at all the cogs and gears that it is constructed from. Then, when you're done with that, you have to examine whatever the system is that makes them all turn in sync – which, in the case of _Artichaut_, is 20% Head Chef Peter Hale and 80% Sous Chef Derek Hale.

Derek is half genius prodigy and half terrifying dictator. There's talk – because there's always talk, no matter what – that he landed the job because he's Peter's nephew and because his mother pulled some strings or some such nonsense, but it's all moot because, regardless of how he ended up with the position, Derek is a force to be reckoned with.

He runs the kitchen when Peter is absent, or occupied, or when he forgets that the rest of them exist – which is most of the time – and he does so with, well, maybe not an iron fist but a fist that is very heavy and very unyielding in nature. He runs the kitchen with a good mixture of intimidation and experience and more finesse than is probably necessary, but it means that all of the staff – back of house and, at times, front of house – rally underneath his command. Which, in terms of running a kitchen, is almost all you need.

"What... are you doing?" Derek asks, staring down at the sea of radish mushrooms with great disdain, like he knows exactly what the response is going to be and is then going to start to rapidly reconsider his loyalty to his family.

"Peter's idea," Stiles chirps, falsely happy, as he continues to carve the radishes. There's only forty left, which is probably some sort of world record. Carving all of these radishes is almost worth it for the pained expression that crosses Derek's face – almost. Stiles adds, almost sing-song, "I haven't even _started_ on my regular prep work for dinner service."

Derek stares at the table, shaking his head slightly, as though choosing his battles. "Fine, whatever. Finish it up quickly."

"You can't rush art," Stiles tells him, not missing the way his eyebrow twitches before he turns away.

Stiles wishes he had met Derek in culinary school, where they would have met on equal ground with equal footing, but Derek trained in France and Stiles has worked his way up without any formal training. The upside to all of that is that he's been teaching Stiles (whether or not Derek will admit to it is another story) and half-guiding and half-shoving him along on this path of culinary discovery. Which means that Stiles gets a little (a lot of) trial and error, but he also gets some seriously invaluable insight and he gets taught things that he's vaguely certain have never been taught to the rest of the staff. There's talk going around that Peter is thinking of opening another restaurant, which means there's talk going around that Derek will be made head chef in his absence, and it doesn't take long for Stiles to start hearing rumors about _him_ being made sous chef.

Which is crazy, and weird, but it makes sense as to why Derek is constantly helping him and insisting that he gets everything one hundred percent right. Although why he wouldn't rather have Danny, or Erica, or Boyd as his right-hand is a little baffling (and it's also sort of baffling as to why he hasn't mentioned any of this sous chef business to Stiles, except that it's Derek and he doesn't talk about his feelings, so maybe it's not that baffling). So it all sort of means that, despite the absolute _shit_ that he receives from Derek on a daily basis, that maybe there's also a modicum of respect there and it makes Stiles feel like he's actually on the road to a _career_ and that's also when he starts to realize that his life is absolutely _the fucking worst_.

Because the problem is that, even in an ill fitting chef's coat and absurdly ugly houndstooth pants, Derek is descended-from-Adonis good looking. He has the whole 'bad boy' image going for him, complete with growling commands and stern glares, but it's only a thin layer covering up for a man who is completely in love with food and the way it makes people feel. Derek is not complex; he is a chef, and, as such, he is socially inept and frustratingly brilliant, and he makes masterpieces of dishes that make Stiles want to weep they're _that freaking good_ – and he does it while glaring and making idle threats, like the social reject that he is. Regardless, or perhaps because of this, Derek has been distracting him from day freaking one. He remembers walking into the restaurant for server training, noting Derek's entrance into the room (to ask Peter about the menu they'd decided on for that evening), and how it had then resulted in Stiles promptly pouring a bottle of practice wine all over his own two feet.

Derek being attractive and Stiles being attracted to Derek are both part of the problem. Normal people would probably find that attraction slimming over the days they worked together, wherein Derek behaved like someone raised by wolves and just genuinely incapable of even the most basic of social niceties, but Stiles has come to terms with the fact that he is an anomaly in this regard. Because Derek's level of social skills being on par with that of a potato is sort of a non-issue. Because Stiles has sort of figured out how to read glares, and shifts in eyebrows, and he realized a long while ago that it's not that he's scared of Derek so much as it is he's scared of failing _in front_ of Derek.

Which maybe goes a little beyond attraction. Because there's 'I want to sleep with you' attraction and then there's Scott's special brand of 'I am writing poetry about us on the back of my cereal boxes' sort of crazy attraction, and this is something else entirely. Not that Stiles doesn't want Derek naked and very near the general vicinity of something resembling a horizontal surface, but there's this annoying niggling _thing_ in the back of his head that says he also wants to meet Derek's family, and find out his favorite restaurant, and see where he studied in France – and it all seriously starts to go downhill.

Stiles is not a fourteen year old girl, but sometimes he looks at Derek and gets the urge to scribble their names together on his to-do list and plan their wedding, so maybe Stiles is a fourteen year old girl. Sometimes he thinks Derek is completely out of his league – like when he's staring at Stiles' tomatoes like they've personally offended him, because they're not all chopped into the same perfect, tiny squares – and then sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes Derek calls him at four in the morning to come in early – and he texts everyone else, because he doesn't care if they get the message or not, but it's apparently imperative that Stiles be there to carve radishes. Sometimes Derek brings _him _coffee – from the severely overpriced Intelligentsia down the street, which is the best coffee Stiles has ever had in his entire life, but he doesn't normally go there because he doesn't make seventy thousand a year – and sometimes he _makes_ him coffee, which is another thing entirely. Sometimes – sometimes, very rarely, only on the full blue moon – Derek's lips twitch up, like they do when Laura says something hilarious, and he smiles at something completely fucking stupid that Stiles has said, and then Stiles' heart is just like, 'Abandon fucking _ship_, captain.'

Although it's difficult to put it all into perspective. There is obviously something about him that Derek doesn't find too offensive, but at this point it's impossible for Stiles to work out whether it's because Derek sees him as sous chef material or because – because of _something_. He doesn't know if Derek is interested in men (he knows that Derek dated Allison's cousin or aunt or something a while back, but women could be the exception and not the rule – or maybe they're part of an all encompassing rule) and regardless, even if he managed to tackle that hurdle, there's this insistent little doubt in the back of his head that keeps saying it doesn't mean he's Derek's type. He doesn't know Derek's type, but seeing as how Stiles is _no one's type _it doesn't take crazy powers of deduction to determine he's probably not it.

-/-

Dinner service comes together, because it always comes together; they are nothing if not a well-oiled machine. The new prix fixe menu is a serious pain in the ass, but it's bringing in customers that normally would be turned away by expensive french cuisine and, because he likes paying rent and eating, Stiles puts up with the absurdity of the clientele that marketing brings in.

"No dressing, no cheese, no figs, no meat," he reads, staring at the ticket. He wants to chuck it out a window, or set it on fire. "So, I guess, lettuce then? A salad with lettuce. That's definitely showing off our exquisite produce and the Capicola it took three months to cure. I'm glad they deigned to shower and come out to see us tonight."

"Price is the same," Allison offers, with shrug. She slides the plate of lettuce onto her serving tray and gives him a weak smile. "I did suggest they try it first, but you know how it goes."

He waves her off, because there are at least twenty other tickets he can be griping about, and because Scott is staring over at them with a sharp knife, like they're discussing oral sex techniques or something, and Stiles is just full up on dealing with crazy right now.

"Two salmon and one croquette madam!" Peter calls across the kitchen, neatly arranging tickets on his line like they're from the lottery and not from the dusty little printer that is very nearly on the verge of kicking the bucket. There's a chorus of, "Yes, chef!" from across the kitchen, and Peter taps his fingers together in a way that makes him look like a cartoon villain.

The restaurant is doing well, but it's rarely booked unless it's a Friday or Saturday night – which tonight is not. They get a lot of the theater going crowd, tourists and the middle class who are seeing whatever is in production at the Erhalt Theater a block down. The standard menu is expensive fare – locally sourced and seasonal, with "seasonal" sometimes coming to mean "changes every other night" - and it's the theater going crowd who orders from it nine times out of ten. They're either well off and not put out by spending a couple hundred for dinner for two, or they're on vacation and see it as an indulgent splurge. The prix fixe menu is what brings in the natives, the locals that either live in the nearby high rises or who heard about it through word of mouth, and who are not as readily willing to put down so much cash outside of anniversary and birthday dinners.

The prix fixe menu is Peter's idea, but it's Laura and Derek's pet and they've seen it through change, after change, after change. Peter still has to approve everything on it, and then he changes it some more – usually to test out something he's had rolling around in his mind but isn't prepared to shell out for to put on the main menu every night. It also gives Derek a little independence, because, although Peter often times dictates what should be on it, he isn't really interested in how it comes to be on the plate - and therefore Derek generally takes this as free reign for artistic interpretation.

It gets interesting because sometimes Stiles feels like Peter is testing Derek and that Derek is trying to provoke Peter. Because Peter will put something like 'meatloaf' as the entree, and Derek will compose a six piece deconstruction of 'meatloaf' featuring things like 'tomato balsamic reduction' and 'sirloin compote', which feels to Stiles a lot like poking a slightly crazy tiger with a pointy stick. But it's not like Derek creates things that are not delicious, so Peter never really says anything about the variances – even if he does get this knowing look, like he might be a little proud his successor is deliberately being as much of a spiteful asshole as possible. Maybe it runs in the family.

Peter starts it, and Derek creates it, and Laura finishes it. Because she has an eye for business, and she knows what people want to eat, and she arranges the dishes and the garnishes in a way that makes the plates look more like pieces of art than anything. She creates advertising and menus with captivating descriptions and fonts, and she entices reservations who seem uncertain about showing up with tantalizing tales of succulent ingredients woven into magic. The Hale family are all mad geniuses, honestly. Sometimes Stiles wonders why they even bothered hiring extra staff.

-/-

It's eleven thirty before the last table has paid and left. There are two bussers working to clear the remaining tables, excluding the one that Stiles and a mismatch of front of house and back of house staff have commandeered as their "recovery station." There are three bottles of different red wines they're trying to lay to rest, and the remnants of what was a cheese board but now looks too picked apart to be anything at all.

"I burned my arm in three different places," Erica says, inspecting her handiwork. Her lips are curled in fierce exasperation. "I'm going to be a scarred, misshapen monster by the end of this year."

"A tired, scarred, misshapen monster who smells of olive oil and bacon," Stiles agrees, and he raises his wine glass to meet Erica's bottle in a gentle toast. He takes another long drag of the wine. "They'll ask 'whatever happened to those young cooks at that bistro?' and someone will say, 'Oh their chef went off the deep end one day and chopped them all into charcuterie. Very tragic.'"

Jackson wrinkles his nose. "That's gross, Stilinksi."

"But accurate," Danny chimes in, and he and Stiles toast to that too.

"Whatever, he can yell at me any day he wants," Erica says swirling the wine in her bottle for a moment, before taking another long pull. She could probably be drinking out of a trough and still make it attractive. "That is one fine piece of ass."

"A fine piece of single ass," Allison adds, and she's too occupied to notice Scott's theatrically crestfallen face as he stares at her over his wine glass, while they discuss the alleged relationship status of Peter Hale's posterior.

"_Single_?" Erica pulls her feet off the table and sits upright. "How can he possibly be single? _Fuck_, is this another gay thing? Danny, status report."

Danny shrugs. "I'm willing to take one for the team to find out, but I don't know."

"You're all disgusting," Laura says, from where she is trying, unsuccessfully, to drown herself in alcohol. "Can we not talk about my uncle, or his ass?"

"You," Erica says, pointing a manicured finger in her direction, "are very unfortunate to have been born related to a sex god. I pity you, I genuinely do. Are all the men in your family smoking hot? Is your brother single? Is he looking? Because _I_ certainly am."

Laura flips her off, but it's not in bad spirit. "I have no idea. I try to stay out of my brother's sex life just as much as I try to stay out of my uncle's sex life."

"Derek is a ponce," Jackson says, because his actual name is Debbie Downer. Scott gives him a toast of agreement, but they're very much two men against the world at the moment. "For all you know he could totally be a virgin."

"There's no way he's a virgin," Allison argues, shaking her head. "He's been to France. French girls. That's all I'm saying."

"He's also probably _crazy_," Scott interrupts, pointing a finger accusingly at every female sitting around the table. "So do you really want to get involved with _that_? Think about it. He's probably killed a man and ate his organs."

Erica's lip curls in disgust. "You are such a freak, honestly."

"It doesn't matter," Lydia says, as she passes by with a tray of wine glasses from the night's service that she hasn't yet taken to dish. "Derek is pretty much off limits."

Seven heads turn to glance at Stiles, who stares back at them for a long moment with a look of complete bafflement.

"What?" he asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

Erica and Lydia roll their eyes in unison, and Jackson snorts into his wine glass.

"Oh honey," Allison says, and pats his knee.

"Oh honey," Erica mimics, grinning from ear to ear.

"Oh my god," Derek joins in, as he pushes open the swinging doors and sticks his head into the dining room. "Are you slackers _drinking_? There are _dishes in here_."

-/-

_Artichaut_ is only open four days a week, and only for dinner, and it means that their staff is incredibly small. Stiles is on a would-go-over-to-your-house-for-drinks-probably basis with essentially everyone that works there, and he pretty much works with almost everyone every day. He gets there at the crack of dawn to do prep work, takes a three hour lunch, gets back to the restaurant in time to prepare for and combat dinner, and then he heads home. The process consumes his entire day – leaving him exhausted and not really willing to do anything at the day's end other than fall into bed and prepare for the next crazy shift. The payoff, of course, would be that he spends four days wrecking his sleep schedule and working twelve hour shifts, and then he has three glorious days off that he spends enjoying life.

There are probably jobs that are better, but, despite its faults, Stiles loves his job. He could be making more, and he could live a subway station or two closer to it, but overall it's difficult to beat. He's made friends there, people who support him, and he's found something he never knew he was good at that he actually enjoys doing. It's not really retail, and it's not working fast food, and he makes decent money with a pretty relaxed schedule.

Some nights are longer than others though. Some nights he helps the servers break down the dining room, or helps Derek take inventory, or helps just generally getting the restaurant all tucked in for the night, and the clock on the wall near the hostess stand tells him it's 12:30 and he still hasn't left the building. These nights happen more and more often the further into the restaurant's mechanics he gets pulled; the more time Derek invests in him learning more things, the more time Stiles invests in the restaurant as a whole.

So it makes sense that sometimes, on these kinds of nights, he ends up being the only person who sees that Derek is actually a human-being capable of emoting. Because Derek will lock up the restaurant and turn to him, while they're both standing on the sidewalk in sparse light, and say, "I'll drive you home."

He doesn't ask if Stiles _wants _a ride home – never asks anymore, that is – because he knows that if he presents it as a question then Stiles is going to wave it off, thank him for the offer, and wait in the subway station for forty five minutes for his train. Derek knows at this point how far away Stiles lives, and how many stops he has, and apparently there's something about all of that that doesn't sit well with him at half past midnight. Whether or not he says it, Stiles gets it; Derek is _concerned _about him.

Derek has driven him home maybe two dozen times since he started working at the restaurant, and yet he hasn't asked for directions since the first time. He has the route memorized – doesn't even use the fancy schmancy GPS on the dash of his Camaro – and Stiles doesn't read too much into that. Actually, he reads an absurdly large amount into everything Derek says and does, but that's because he's a masochist.

The ride is always super quiet, with the satellite radio turned up just enough for it to be background music. So Stiles listen to that, and he listens to the echo of the turn signal, and he listens to the slide of Derek's hands against the steering wheel, and even a half dozen rides home is not enough for him to get used to it – not really. Derek's car is stupidly nice, and it smells like him, and it's kept freakishly clean – not even so much as a chef's jacket thrown on the backseat – and Stiles feels a little like an intruder.

These rides always go the same, but tonight Derek breathes in deeply, one hand on the wheel and one resting in his lap, and says, "This city is gorgeous, and you make good money, so why do you live in the shittiest part?"

"Getting tired of driving me home?"

Derek glances at him, then back to the road. "It was a genuine question. You could have better. Something closer to work."

"I don't want to base my residency on something so easily changeable," Stiles reasons. "I don't even know if I'll still have this job in a year. Things happen. You could fire me for mislabeling something or forgetting to turn the lights out or something. Then how would I afford a nicer place?"

"You have to realize how stupid that sounds," Derek replies, deadpan.

"I think it's a realistic concern. Job security is important to everyone."

"When Peter opens _Fresca, _you're taking over my position. How much more job security do you need?"

Stiles turns his head and stares, and stares. "What? I – is that a thing? I wasn't aware that was a thing."

"You're an idiot."

"You didn't _say _anything about it until now. It's just been rumors. You know I don't actually read minds, right? I hope that's not a job requirement."

"Who else would it be?" Derek asks, and it's punctuated by the red light they stop at. He's looking at Stiles, instead of staring straight ahead, and it's a little unnerving. The underlying message of that seemingly innocent question is a little unnerving. Stiles is a little unnerved.

He swallows and licks his lips. "There are like five other people in the kitchen-"

"Rhetorical question," is the reply he gets, strangely serious. "There's no one else. If you aren't up for it, let me know soon so I can post something-"

"No, no – I, uh.. I'm up for it. I'm," he pauses, and nods at the green light. The car starts forward again. "I'm just kind of taken aback. Honored, I guess is the word choice that would be appropriate in this situation. Also: gratitude. Thank you, I mean."

Derek nods, but doesn't say anything else – which, really, is just par for the course. The conversation leaves Stiles feeling a little strange, in a good way. He hasn't felt this way since Angela White asked him to the Sadie Hawkins dance years and years ago; it's a mix of nerves and excitement, and that strange feeling you always get when someone does or says something that implies they think you're awesome.

There's no traffic so late at night, and even though they hit nearly every light on the way there it still takes just under fifteen minutes. They pull up in front of the brick building in one of the two loading zones. There's someone sleeping in the alley near the building, completely out of it, and there's a light on the third floor that's flashing as though it comes from a television, but otherwise the street and building are quiet. Derek still glances out the window disapprovingly, as though this is obviously some sort of crack house he shouldn't be leaving his future sous chef at.

Stiles grabs his backpack, heavy from where Allison had insisted he take three quarters of the dinner she'd ordered that evening and not finished, and pulls it onto his knees. He has one hand on the door handle, and for a really weird moment he considers asking Derek if he wants to come up for a cup of coffee or something – which is stupid, stupid, stupid and weird. Because Derek is basically his boss, and probably doesn't really care for him past the professional aspect, and because he doesn't even know if Derek swings that way, and because, because, because-

There are four millions reasons why it's a bad idea, which is probably why he swallows the question and instead says, "Thanks again, man. Nice to not have to wait an hour and a half to get home. I guess I'll see you in... uhh.."

"Come in at eight," Derek concedes, which absolutely makes this the best night of Stiles' young life.

"Eight o'clock!" He confirms, and then opens the door to the greeting of sharp, cool November air. The warmth of the heated leather seats fade away as he shuts the passenger door and waves another 'thanks' at Derek, who is checking something on his phone and misses it entirely – which, yeah, okay.

Stiles slips his backpack over one shoulder and makes it up the steps to his building. He mashes in the four digit code, and the familiar 'buzz' sound is quickly followed by the lock in the door sliding out of place. He gets into the building and shut the door behind him – and notices, through the glass of the door, Derek watching his retreat into the building. There's a moment or two, and then the Camaro is pulling away from the curb, and back onto the street, and it vanishes out of Stiles' area of observation from the tiny door window.

Which is sort of like Derek Hale driving him home and then making sure he gets safely inside his building before he goes home himself, which is only the four hundredth weird thing to happen in one day. It makes him feel sort of stupidly warm inside – which is great, because his apartment doesn't have heat.


	3. Chapter 3

"_The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. _

_In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude." - Julia Child_

It's the twenty second of October and it's been raining again. Stiles treks down the street in rubber boots and his waterproof jacket, the hood not quite as big as he'd like it to be and the buttons not quite as tight. Erica meets him at the station instead of on the sidewalk, because she lost her umbrella a week ago and now bolts down the street in between bursts of rain in an attempt to get to her destination without breaking down and buying another.

"I've tried," she scoffs, pulling her hands out of wet gloves when they find seats together on the train. "I stand in that stupid aisle for twenty minutes, looking like a dumbass, staring at the row of umbrellas and buying nothing. It's like trying to pick out condoms or something. How the fuck do I know what I need until I need it?"

"I don't get the confusion. Some umbrella-shaped device that blocks water from hitting you and contracts to save space when not needed. How is that a conundrum?"

Erica and Stiles are commuting buddies through reasoning of logistics more than anything. She lives down the street from him, they take the same train downtown, and their shifts coincide reasonably close enough for it to be beneficial to both parties. The train ride can be long, or weird, and the buddy system enables them to travel in the wee hours of the morning or late at night without really having to worry about who else might be traveling. Their commuting relationship began a week after Stiles got hired, after they kept running into each other in the station, and what started out as an awkward and wobbly friendship has turned into something more stable and possibly less awkward.

Erica is a good friend; she's temperamental, and they have practically nothing in common, but she's a good person – deep down, honestly. Even if she would rather spend time with Boyd and Isaac than with him when it comes down to it.

Friends outside of work are difficult to come by when you work crazy twelve hour shifts four days a week. That means the rest of the time Stiles is intimately dating his pillow and television, or maybe making longing eyes with the shopping carts at the grocery down the street, or quite possibly having meaningful afternoon coffee with the washer and dryer in the basement of his apartment building; what it means it that Stiles doesn't really have time for much on his off-days besides catching up with his grease covered chef coats and restocking his fridge with water and sandwich items.

"You know nothing about umbrellas," Erica replies, because apparently they're not done having this conversation. "You don't even own one."

"Because I don't melt on contact with water," Stiles reasons, and he doesn't add that he considers her a close relative of the Wicked Witch of the West, but the implication is there regardless and Erica's right eye twitches at him like he said it aloud regardless.

It's still drizzling by the time they reach their destination – and Stiles doesn't try to keep up as Erica sprints down the street like the hounds of hell are at her heels. He makes it there on time, even a little early – but also just in time to see Isaac come careening out of the kitchen in a mild panic.

"Health department!" he hisses, a little too loudly to be as stealthy as he's probably trying for. "I think Derek is about to have an aneurism. He's sort of stalling her, but Peter brought in a car load of shit today for the walk-in and I'm almost 100% sure it's not labeled. I've been looking for you everywhere."

"Why didn't you label it?" Stiles asks, and although Isaac does look panic-stricken he's absolutely not missing any fingers or hands.

He gets a blank stare back, as though he's suggesting performing brain surgery in the middle of the kitchen. This is probably what the implication was when Derek said there wasn't anyone else capable of not burning down the restaurant who could also be his sous chef.

Stiles leaves Isaac floundering in the hallway and sneaks past where Derek is pretending to be confused about forms and proper documentation to get to the walk-in that's larger than the bedroom at his apartment. There is a stack of boxes in the middle of the floor, unmarked and unsealed, that look like someone was going to put them away and then got distracted by something shiny and wandered off; this is actually Peter's filing process most of the time (although it is at least _inside _the walk-in, so there's something to be said about that). There's also a half dozen things out of place, or left open, which is a clear sign of Scott and Boyd doing their prep-work before anyone else clocks in.

The boxes are the most egregious offense though and Stiles tackles them first. The first is full to the brim with citrus – lemons, limes, grapefruit – and it's a little odd, because they've already got plenty of fruit for the week, so why would Peter go and buy out the Farmer's Market of all citrus, but okay whatever. They at least don't need to be individually labeled, and are easy enough to dump into their respective bins (mindlessly easy, but of course no one else has done it – not that Stiles is secretly plotting the demise of his coworkers, at least not yet).

The second box is not necessarily moving, except that it totally is.

"Holy Jesus," Stiles says, because he's not sure if he wants to open the box. He's also a little disturbed that there are no air holes on the box – because if Peter is going to kidnap humans and/or animals for experiments then the least he can do is give them some oxygen – but it's also the only box that's been marked, on the top in Peter's elegant cursive, with the words: LIVE LOBSTERS, DO NOT FREEZE.

"Is this seriously a box of live lobsters?" Stiles asks himself. It shouldn't be, because they don't serve lobster and also because they have nowhere to keep them, and no paperwork for them that the health inspector is most certainly going to look for, because why would they have paperwork for something that _isn't on the menu_. But yes, it's totally a box of live lobsters. Probably that Peter got off the black market and drove over here in his car, maybe in the back seat buckled in, because he's a _crazy person_.

There is probably something Stiles needs to do for the long term for these lobsters, but right now he's working on the short term, without HACCP paperwork or the like, and the best course of action is to sometimes pretend there is nothing wrong whatsoever. He heaves the box up onto a lower shelf and moves a box of raw, center-cut bacon right on top of it. The bacon covers up Peter's note, which leaves Stiles free to fish the Sharpie out of his pocket and write, in huge bold letters on the side of the box: "BACON ENDS," followed shortly thereafter by the date and a guess at how long rejected pieces of pork would be refrigerator stable.

The last box contains printer paper and four bottles of window cleaner, which is in the walk-in for reasons that are currently eluding him; Stiles doesn't understand how insane people can obtain loans, and buy property, and start their own restaurant – it doesn't honestly seem fair. He heaves the box up onto his shoulder, and turns around just in time for the door to swing open.

The health inspector moves past him like he's not even standing there, clipboard in hand and a pinched expression on her face. Derek is standing in the doorway, looking four years older and like he might consider closing the restaurant down at nine am. There is a crash from behind him, followed by yelping that could only be from Scott, and Derek glances briefly at the ceiling as though wishing for patience, or a place to bury a body.

Stiles staggers past him with the box on his shoulder, offering him a supportive grin. "Just think – it's not even eight thirty yet."

Derek eyes the box like one might eye a haphazardly tied hyena, but he doesn't ask about it – just moves his attention back to where the lady inspector is scrutinizing every square inch of their giant refrigerator. "Don't remind me."

-/-

"You have precisely forty five seconds to tell me why your shadow is bothering me – daily – for peach recipes," Danny says, sometime around four that afternoon, and his grip on the wooden spoon in his hand is sort of frightening.

Danny is Stiles' age, but he comes from a long line of pastry chefs and might possibly be the lovechild of Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines. He spends most of the day cranking out brioche for french toast – which is their biggest seller, regardless that they're only open for dinner – and amidst it all still finds time to work on the disturbingly long list of tasks that Peter keeps discreetly adding things to when he thinks Danny isn't looking.

He also may kill Scott before the day is done.

"Have you ever been in love, Danny boy?" Stiles asks, dicing tomatoes into tiny squares. "Because I don't think Scott has. This is all new to him. Puppy love, if you will. Puppy love that has exploded inside him."

"Peaches aren't even in season," Danny tells him, poking the spoon in his direction in a way that is way more threatening than a wooden stick should be capable of. "And Scott couldn't bake something if it were a matter of life or death, let alone his sex life."

"Preaching to the choir," Stiles assures him.

Danny does eventually go back to his own station and stop making idle threats on Stiles' life, but he does keep glancing back at him sort of maniacally every time Scott looks up from his station and starts talking about peach cobbler. All in all, it's a fairly standard start to their morning.

The change-up in routine comes about when Peter bursts in an hour later, an armful of the still moving lobsters from Stiles' earlier walk-in escapade in his arms, and proclaims that they've decided to be part of the "Dine Out" week that the city seems to think is going to get people out of their houses spending their money. Which is not really all that strange a thing for him to say. The live lobsters are still a little strange, because there's not a fish market anywhere remotely nearby (which makes Stiles' earlier imagining of all those lobsters buckled into the backseat of Peter's BMW all the more relevant), but Laura standing behind him with a look of horror on her face and a clipboard in hand makes everyone a little wary.

"We were only able to get in on it for the last night, which is Sunday, and we're booked," she says, waving the clipboard a little. "For the entire night. From four to close. Patio and dining room and I had people asking if they could _sit on the floor_."

"Apparently there's a quilter's convention in town," Peter says, waving his hand nonchalantly. "An extra five hundred thousand people in the economy can only benefit us."

"People still quilt?" Scott asks.

"We're booked solid on a Sunday night?" Derek asks.

"I see we're updating our menu – and our prices," Stiles notes, in regards to the squirming lobsters.

Peter flashes him a bright grin, like a proud schoolteacher. "Exactly! We're changing our prix fixe menu to include 'Lobster Benedict.' Oh, Danny, that reminds me – I need English muffins."

Danny's eye twitches dangerously.

"Do you maybe see the inherit logistical and morale-leaching problems with changing the menu every four hours?" Laura asks. "By which I mean actual mutiny."

Peter scoffs, tossing the lobsters at Scott – who flails around to catch them. They are all officially characters on a sitcom. "Oh, please. Have you seen what I pay them? _I _should mutiny."

"So we're dubbing Sunday night as 'Doomsday Night' then," Stiles says, nodding. Actually, all in all, a sudden change in the prix fixe menu spells only good things for him; the fewer mushrooms he has to carve out of radishes the better. Although the new printout Peter has him for prep work is obscenely long, with a gaggle of seriously time consuming garnishes that will probably end up falling off the plates because Jackson has nothing but disdain for intricate plate design when it affects his ability to carry ten at once.

Danny is scrolling through his phone (which Stiles has never actually held in his hands, but that he's pretty sure is just a repository for all of Danny's super secret baking recipes) and scowling at it like it is causing him physical pain.

"I'm allergic to lobster," Boyd says, eying Scott's armful of crustacean warily.

"I'm allergic to extra work without extra pay," Erica chimes in.

"I can't hear any of you," Peter replies, and he picks up his clipboard. "I hope you're all standing around because you're completely done with the meager amount of prep work I scheduled you."

"Actual mutiny," Laura says again, but the kitchen is already back in motion.

-/-

It's not raining on Friday, but the clouds look ominous regardless.

"You've already done inspections on deliveries," Derek says, as he changes the paper in the expediter printer. "Expediting is inspection on a more continuous scale. Call out what you need as it prints, check the ticket times, check the plates. You're managing the flow and letting the kitchen know what you need to complete a ticket."

"Most nights Peter does this," Stiles replies, and he's not going to admit that he feels overwhelmed, but he's sure it's pretty obvious at this point. "I never see you doing this."

"You need to know how to run the kitchen in my absence," Derek looks up from the printer and at him, which is disorientating. It makes Stiles want to look at the counters, or his own feet; it feels a lot like scrutiny, even though it's not that at all. "I need to be able to depend on you to be my shadow."

Which is heavy, in a way. Already there's a huge contrast in the way that Derek runs things and the way that Peter runs things. Because Peter is a 'fly by the seat of your pants' sort of guy (which probably has do to with his haphazard background in the culinary world) and Derek is more strict by-the-book sort of drill sergeant which comes from stuffy culinary schools in France. There are similarities, and there's no doubting that both methods work, but the contrast to Stiles feels almost like moving into a different restaurant with an entirely different staff.

The weird thing is that Derek and he didn't get along that well at first – not by a long shot. Mostly because Stiles had been an atrocious server, who broke glasses and dropped pricy plates of filets, and who was constantly running back to the kitchen for something he had forgotten – which is the culinary equivalent of throwing rocks at the culinary staff and expecting them to be okay with it. So for the first week Derek had probably been silently plotting his demise, which hadn't really been a huge problem to Stiles; he'd definitely thought Derek attractive back then too, but it's difficult to really concern yourself with someone who is deliberately being a huge asshole to you when you're obviously on something of a learning curve.

"Line your tickets up in order of arrival," Derek continues, sticking their blank ticket onto the rail. "This lets you know what should be going out next. You want to keep on eye on your soups and salads – they need to go out first, and if we're moving Scott to fill your station then god help us all."

"Hey, he's a really good worker," Stiles says, but only because it's true.

Derek 'hums', which is neither agreement nor disagreement, and chooses not to elaborate. He gestures back to the railing where the tickets hang. "This will get full, with tickets still printing. You have to keep a level head and not panic – everyone is going to feed off of you."

The first few weeks of this job had been Stiles getting along swimmingly with everyone in the restaurant, even those in the kitchen, aside from Derek. Because every time he'd gone into the kitchen Derek had looked like he would rather stab pens into his own eyes than talk to him, and anytime he'd made a mistake he'd absolutely dreaded having to go into the kitchen and tell Derek, and it had eventually gotten to such a point that he'd started having Lydia go for him – which, as far as battles go, is right up there with having your little sister confront the bullies for you.

Actually, Derek had pretty much hated him until the night Stiles had plunged himself into the kitchen and rescued them all from a truly lousy garde manger. He thinks they probably got off on the wrong foot in the beginning and that Derek had formed opinions solely around Stiles' complete ineptitude as a server; he thinks that he did something that night in the kitchen to change that, to turn it around, and that maybe Derek had never stopped and actually seen him before. Because Derek hadn't kicked him out of the station, or demanded that he stop making salads, or even really inspected the products he was sending out – which probably had more to do with the insanity that was the kitchen that night, but regardless it meant at the end of the night things had changed between them.

"If we're both working then I expect you to be able to jump in here if needed, or to help out someone who gets behind, or run food to tables when the servers get overwhelmed," Derek stabs the blank ticket and turns to him. "The flow of the restaurant, and the quality and appearance of the food that leaves this kitchen, should be your main priorities. Anything else is extra when you have time."

Which is not to say that things had completely changed. Because Stiles' first real day of working in the kitchen (and showing up ten minutes late, because who the hell is immediately used to showing up to work at six in the morning) had been awkward, and a little uncomfortable, and Derek had scrutinized every single thing he'd done. Twice he'd thrown Stiles' prep work away and demanded that he redo it. More than once he'd passed by and given Stiles another random task, that had just added more time onto how long he had to spend on his prep work for that evening. By noon Stiles had been nearly shaking with frustration, and anxiety, and a million different emotions that all leveled out into the overwhelming desire to throw his apron onto the floor and walk out.

He still doesn't know why he didn't. Probably because he knew Derek was pushing him, testing him, and that he wanted to see him fail (or maybe he didn't want to see him fail, but was seeing if he _would _fail). He didn't think he could live with himself if he let Derek being an asshole push him out of something he knew he could do, something that he knew he could do well; he didn't know if he could deal with failure as a result of someone else refusing to believe in him. So he'd gone back that night, after his long break, and started preparing his station for the dinner rush. He'd made it through dinner, with his apron looking like he'd just fought a war and his station almost completely destroyed, and he hadn't freaked out, or broke down in tears the fifth time Jackson had dropped something, and he'd made it until they'd locked the doors and started on cleaning.

Derek had insisted he clean Danny's station too, and Erica's, and Stiles had thought about telling him to shove it – but he hadn't, and he had cleaned their stations as well. He'd cleaned, and swept, and mopped until two in the morning. There had definitely been some resentment boiling in him then, and he'd mopped the floor a little angrier than totally necessary. Yet when he'd walked out into the dining room, pants legs wet with floor solution and pondering on how long it'd take to get home with the trains only running once an hour, Derek had still been there. He'd been sitting at one of the tables doing paperwork, and he'd looked up and said, _"Finally. Grab a trash bag – you're not sitting in my car covered in shit."_

Which had done something ridiculously stupid to the fiery burning hatred of a thousand suns he had developed towards Derek; something that has since warped into a beast all its own.

"You pretty much expect me to be a skinnier, less threatening you," Stiles deduces.

Derek was turning away, to lead him to the next area of interest, but he stops then and takes a step back – which puts him close enough that his polished black shoes hit the side of Stiles' own. Proximity with Derek is a fickle thing, because personal space is something Stiles thinks Derek has probably only read about in books or seen in movies. There have been half a dozen times when Derek has been all up in Stiles' personal bubble and then, in the middle of a conversation or verbal flogging, has had this strange look of realization – like he's suddenly remembered the area of his brain covered in cobwebs that reads 'social etiquette' – and then he gets awkward, and backs away, and Stiles reads way too much into all of it. Although sometimes that realization never occurs and Derek just ends up hanging out in Stiles' personal space like it's totally normal – like right now, for instance.

"I'd rather you be yourself," Derek says, and Stiles wishes there was more space between them whenever Derek decides to have these moments of normal human emotions. "If I'd wanted another me then that's who I would have hired."

"Well you did at first, but he sucked and couldn't make salads for beans – or with beans," Stiles says, and then there's a moment where Derek's face goes strangely blank and then shifts into a smirk he can't squash, and Stiles feels like holding his breath – but that would be stupid, so he doesn't.

-/-

Stiles knew how to cook before he started working at _Artichaut_. Cooking is an essential life skill that he learned from a young age, when he had reached a point when even his young brain realized his father shouldn't be feeding him hot dogs for breakfast. Taking care of his dad had been the main priority behind learning how to cook, and if it tasted good then all the better. Cooking and culinary arts, as Stiles has sort of figured out, are not necessarily super different. The ingredients may be nicer, and the equipment is definitely better, and he may be learning a few techniques and skills that are definitely indispensable, but the methods are not so wildly different that he feels completely lost.

His kitchen now versus his kitchen a year ago are laughably different. Because now he appreciates the difference between the knives he picked up at Target and the ones that Derek made him custom order from some specialty store that may have actually required fingerprinting in the ordering process. He appreciates the difference between crafting a recipe versus throwing together everything in his fridge on top of pasta. Which is not to say that he doesn't still use his Target knives (secretly, at home, when he doesn't think any of his culinary friends might come over – which is never, so why he thinks about it he's not sure) and he does still eat boxed macaroni and cheese when it's been a long day and he wants nothing else. It also means that he has an appreciation for both sides.

His apartment is (to be realistic) kind of shitty. His "kitchen" is essentially a mini fridge and a hot plate, which had been enough a year ago but is now trying his patience and newfound creativity something fierce. He knows he's not the greatest chef in the world, but he's also pretty sure even Gordon fucking Ramsey probably couldn't make a souffle on that damned hot plate. There's a single countertop – on which his microwave is sitting – and he usually chops vegetables with his cutting board balanced precariously over the sink. All in all it's not the greatest set-up, but he makes it work; he's actually managed to get himself in the habit of making dinner at least three days a week, which is a one hundred percent increase in culinary productivity in his apartment.

Actually, the aforementioned bit about friends never coming over is a total lie. Because sometimes Scott comes over to talk about Allison or play Halo or eat all of Stiles' Twizzlers. Also, sometimes – usually when Stiles least expects it, Lydia will text him with fifteen minutes advance notice that she is coming over. Then he gets to experience how clean his apartment can become in fifteen minutes (which is not so much clean as it is rediscovering how much the only closet can hold at a moment's notice and how much square footage of his bathroom he can scrub with the remaining time).

She comes over Saturday night, an hour after they've finished closing the restaurant, and they order Chinese food and watch Conan. There are plenty of times that they've sat on his futon, watching light night television and eating horribly fattening take out, that he wonders if this is what it would be like dating her. Not that he hasn't thought about that a million times, because she's gorgeous and funny and actually perfect, but there are a couple (hundred) reasons why it's never gone any further than him (silently) considering it; the number one fact would be that she's absolutely friend-zoned him, but even before that she's somehow secondary to someone who might as well be some sort of pipe dream.

"He's just..." she pauses, chopsticks holding a piece of orange chicken over the container. "He's so full of himself. Sometimes I'm not sure he wouldn't really rather be dating himself, or perhaps a mirror. Maybe my body, but if I glued mirrors to every inch of my skin."

Stiles tries to look sympathetic and not horrified, but it just ends up coming out as a mix which makes her give him a stern look.

"I'm serious," she says. "Jackson is a narcissist."

"Well yeah," Stiles agrees, because there's nothing to do but agree with that statement. "So, I don't know, maybe stop dating him? Do you know how weird it is to be like 'Except for being in love with himself, he's totally great!'?"

Lydia rolls her eyes at him, and then steals one of his wontons. "It's not that easy."

Apparently not. They got hired at the same time, and have apparently been dating on and off again since they were sixteen, and at this point it's just a little beyond his comprehension. Because he's fairly certain if he could choose a nematode or Jackson he'd go for the worm – although, honestly, they're both parasites. Lydia deserves better, but she doesn't really seem interested in better, and it's not really too much of Stiles' business.

"Scott should just ask Allison out instead of trying to woo her like they're actors in a Shakespearean play," Lydia says, shifting the conversation skillfully away from her life choices. "She'll say 'yes.' Just tell him that."

"I _have_ told him that. I think he might have a life crippling fear of rejection from pretty girls."

It's late enough that most of the channels they switch to are all playing infomercials. They settle on one selling a blender that is supposedly strong enough to puree leather shoes and move from their dinner onto the box of Thin Mints Stiles has been hoarding in his freezer for weeks.

"Speaking of crippling fear of rejection," Lydia begins, and she's inspecting the cookie between her two fingers rather than staring accusingly at Stiles; he feels her scrutiny regardless.

"Yeah, yeah," he murmurs. The cookies taste a little like his freezer, but mostly like an amazing mint flavored heaven. The company doesn't hurt. "I have a crippling fear of being fired."

"Oh please," she scoffs. "You're obviously his favorite."

Which Stiles should probably resent, or be angry about, but he's never exactly been in a position of favoritism and it turns out it's actually kind of awesome. He definitely thinks he had to earn preferential treatment (even if he does think 'favoritism' in this case is Derek considering the lot of them as unruly puppies and Stiles is just the least smelly – or maybe the most house trained) and he'll take what he can get.

"Actually, you're probably everyone's favorite," she brushes cookie crumbs from her perfectly manicured fingers. "Whether or not they realize it is another thing."

"You are stupidly sweet, and also extremely wrong."

She steals the last cookie and smiles like a shark. "Stiles, I'm never wrong."

Well, except in her taste in men, but Stiles feels like it's bad form to bring that up again.

-/-

There are probably things in the world more awful than the restaurant on Sunday night, but if Stiles were called on to name even one "worst thing" he would really be at a loss. Because Sunday night is, hands down, the hardest thing he's ever done ever. The morning is hectic just because there's so much to get done that couldn't be prepped the night before; the morning is awful because he gets there at four-fucking-AM and drinks seven coffees before noon, then spends his entire lunch break sleeping regardless. The afternoon prep is worse, because there are people arriving at three o'clock for their 4 o'clock reservations, and Laura refuses to let them sit outside in the cold so they end up taking up the dining room and making the servers antsy – which then makes the kitchen antsy – and, honestly, things just get off to a bad start.

From the seating of the first table things are busy. _Artichaut_ is run by tyrants and, as such, is a well oiled machine more than capable of handling whatever is thrown at it, but it doesn't necessarily make it any more pleasant. They're also running through a prix fixe menu they've only known about for a day, which means absolutely zero time to practice. Which means that Stiles alternates between checking the menu, and making salads, and chasing appetizers out the door to add forgotten garnishes. Peter stands at his printer shouting orders and expediting plates, possibly with dollar signs in his eyes, and the rest of the restaurant struggles to keep up.

Derek is everywhere. He's on the line, then he's expediting with Peter, then he's desperately trying to revive a Hollandaise, and it makes Stiles realize that soon enough it's going to be _him_ running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Which is absolutely terrifying. Because Derek is a _machine_, who shifts seamlessly from one station to another, wherever he's needed, and who knows freaking _everything_ about their menu, and how to prepare it, and adjusts with changes like he's in possession of a computerized brain. There's no pause for him, just an endless dance around the kitchen that ends in dishes finishing on time and plates going out on schedule.

There are problems, upon problems, upon problems. Jackson drops five bowls of soup in one go, while Allison forgets to alert them to a seafood allergy at one of her tables, all the while Laura is asking if they think it's possible to squeeze in another two diners they hadn't had room for before but now maybe they magically do. Derek gets new soup out without compromising the orders they already have, and he personally makes certain the dishes for Allison's table are remade under strict supervision, and he let's Laura do what she will because there's really no controlling her anyway.

For the longest time Stiles was sort of under the impression that Peter wasn't really into the whole chef thing. That maybe he stood back and did very little to actually assist because he would rather just be the eccentric maestro of the kitchen. Sunday night shows him that it's not really any of those things. Because Peter has been doing the same thing all along that Derek has been doing to Stiles: preparing him to succeed. Peter stands off, and he watches the hurricane that is his kitchen, and he watches his nephew take complete and total control over all aspects of it. Which, essentially, is exactly what he's been training him to do. Peter is molding Derek into his replacement, and it's exactly what Derek has been slowly doing to Stiles.

At the end of the night the kitchen is fairly destroyed. Coincidentally, so is the staff.

"I have no idea what I made tonight," Jackson says, in reference to his tips, with his head on the table, "but it wasn't enough."

"I can't feel my feet," Isaac says, and he's staring at them as though seriously concerned that they may no longer be functional.

"You are all dead to me," Erica tells them, but the veracity of her statement is a little downplayed by the fact that she's half asleep on Lydia.

The fact that it's Sunday means that there are three days during which the restaurant will be closed, which means there are three days that Stiles will hibernate like a bear full of salmon. There is a pile of prep work he'll have to worry about on Thursday, but it's not Thursday currently and he's not going to worry about it on his days off.

Derek drives him home again and a Sunday night seems like the perfect time to casually toss in a suggestion of late night coffee or other hanging out that could lead to less-than-platonic happenings. He knows for a fact that Derek doesn't go into the restaurant on Monday mornings, even if sometimes Peter calls him with another harebrained idea. He knows for a fact that Derek goes home to what is almost certainly an empty apartment and sleeps, then wakes up and does... actually, he's not really sure what Derek does on his off days, which is another great reason for Derek to come up to his apartment and drink coffee and discuss hobbies and free time and maybe the back of Stiles' tonsils.

Except that Stiles falls asleep on the ride to his apartment, with his face pressing uncomfortably against the cold glass of the window. He doesn't realize it of course – not until they're outside his apartment and Derek is shaking him gently, with a light grip on his elbow. He wakes up with a slight start, like anyone might when they were surprised to find they had slept while tired, and it seems silly then to make any suggestions whatsoever. Which even right then seems sort of like a cop-out, but he's still half-asleep and a little groggy and a million miles from feeling confident.

Derek waits until he gets inside the foyer of his apartment building before driving off, and Stiles waits until he gets to his apartment to fall asleep in a pile on top of all his covers. There's a text on his phone the next morning, from Derek, asking if he wants to go over the mountain of information he needs to know to pass and obtain his _Serv Safe_ certificate, maybe over coffee at some cafe Stiles has never heard of in an area of the city he's never been. Which sounds a lot like coffee with Derek (even if the discussion of foodborne bacteria and sanitation standards are Derek's idea of a good time) and it sounds a lot like a mystical, magical dreamworld wherein Stiles' life is simultaneously awesome and terrifying.

The text is also at eight in the morning, because Derek is some sort of vampire-human hybrid who never sleeps – apparently. Stiles texts him back an affirmative for Wednesday and falls back asleep face first in his pillow.


	4. Chapter 4

_"Food hurdles the language barrier, makes friends among civilized people,_

_and warms the heart." - Samuel V. Chamberlain_

Tuesday night Stiles ends up at Coil with Danny, watching burlesque dancers shimmy about on stage, and crowding up against people dressed like they've stepped out of a black and white movie. It's so drastically far from what he's used to, from what he's comfortable with, that it takes him a good solid hour just to get up the nerve to walk himself to the bar to get a soda. The space is in what used to be a warehouse of some sort, and it's decorated like the inside of a boiler room that collided with a ballroom, and it's eclectic and maybe a little elegant and it's _neat_ – but it's also sort of freaking crazy.

The place has a strict dress code that leaves him digging into the back of his closet for a pair of loafers he hasn't worn since prom, and a pair of pants that only fit by some miraculous intervention from a higher power, and, seriously, leave it to Danny to pick the weirdest fucking places to hang out at. A place that outlaws Converse and jeans is probably not somewhere Stiles should be, especially while he's spent the better part of the week contemplating his own self worth and trying to figure out exactly where he measures up in terms of desirability.

Whatever. He's there, he's dressed in his best, and he's totally ready for whatever magic Danny had promised him to start happening. He has absolutely no clue what the fuck he's supposed to be doing – dancing probably, but _fuck that noise_ – and he has no idea how to 'mingle' so he ends up cradling his soda in hand and melding himself into a nearby wall. It reminds him a lot of all school dances ever, actually, except that the room is filled with disgustingly attractive people, all of whom totally have this socializing thing down pat and are not at all out of their comfort zones, and Stiles can hear a British narrator's voice in his head, out of some Discovery Channel documentary: '_And here we see the Stiles completely out of his element... Let's wait and see how long it takes for the others to smell the fear on him and attack_.'

He hasn't begun actively regretting every minute of this decision yet, but he's at least boarded the train into Regretsville – which is when he spots Danny across the room, sucking face with some guy he's already wooed, and that is just really it. There's only so much a guy can stand around and question his self worth, while around him his friends continue to be beautiful and successful and continuously get laid despite their obvious shortcomings in terms of commitment and, and, and _stuff_.

Stiles downs his soda and relocates the glass back to its rightful home, before picking his way through a crowd of people who are half dancing and half discussing politics. There's a burlesque stage he has to find his way around, and around the throngs of people congregating there and just generally getting in his way, and then there's a snake-shaped path to get to the staircase, and he's already annoyed and exhausted and he hasn't even gotten back up to the first floor yet.

There are people milling about even on the staircase, or sitting right in the middle holding a conversation like it's totally fine to block the flow of traffic. At the top of the stairs, back on the first floor, the music and hum of voices below fades considerably. If the bottom floor is for dancing and mingling and whatever else, the first floor must be the one that is supposed to ease you more into it – and it's a shame they blurred past it when Danny was dragging him through when they first came in.

The lights are dimmer, and there's a side room that opens out into the night – and into a heavy smog of smoke from lit cigarettes and cigars – and there's music, but it's instrumental and low and not as intrusive as the music below. There's another bar up here, and more throngs of hipsters standing and blocking walkways - and there's a guy leaning against the staircase railing with a glass of something green in one hand, who Stiles would probably have never noticed except that he collides with him when he rounds the end of the banister.

There's an awkward moment wherein Stiles congratulates himself on his impeccable inability to walk and think at the same time – wherein he attempts to regain his balance and ends up just spilling the guy's drink on him instead, which, really, is a great way to end the night. The guy ends up grabbing his arm with his free hand, and his glass is only half empty – or half full, or what-the-fuck-ever – but he looks super pissed and the grip he has on Stiles' arm is sort of painful.

"Whoa, hey, sorry," Stiles starts.

"Do you have any idea how much this shirt cost?" the guy asks, and Stiles figures it must cost a lot, because otherwise why would the guy even mention it, but seriously – he doesn't have to be a dick about it.

"God, no, how much is Hot Topic charging nowadays?" he asks, and the guy's eyes widen incredulously, and his grip on Stiles tightens, and it's just his luck to get into a fight in the middle of some upscale hipster club where everyone dresses like they think they've stepped out of an issue of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

He gets pushed, back away from the staircase – so, at least he's not going to be pushed _down_ it, which is a plus – and then he's being backed away from the bar and the cloud of smoke from the balcony. Stiles presses his heels against the floor, because if this guy thinks he's going to lead him into some dark hallway to beat the shit out of him, where no one can see, then he's sadly mistaken. Except that the guy sees what he's doing, and is more than happy to keep pushing and overbalance him – more than happy to shove him backwards and watch him stumble, stumble, stumble into someone else.

The someone else staggers slightly when Stiles knocks into their shoulder, but is stable enough that they don't both go down in a heap. The someone gets a hand on his back, to push him back onto both his feet, and Stiles only realizes it's a guy when he hears him say, voice laced with warning, "Watch yourself, asshole."

Normally he would think it was just his luck to run into someone else – and that he might be getting beat up by two guys instead of one – but it doesn't play out like that, because the voice is familiar enough for Stiles to whip around. The hand on his back, and the body he ran into, both belong to Derek fucking Hale, who is standing there as though it isn't the weirdest coincidence in all the world, and who is staring past Stiles at the dick who shoved him.

"Mind your own fucking business," the guy retorts, but he's lost some of the aggression and fire in his movements. His words taper off at the end, as though he's reconsidering saying them – or, really, as though he's realized the guy he's mouthing off to is twice his size. He glances at Stiles, like he's trying to figure out if there's still an option to beat his face in, but Derek isn't breaking eye contact, and eventually Stiles can see his attacker's shoulders slump a little.

"Whatever," he says, shrugging, and he turns to head back to the bar, supposedly to get another drink.

"Ho-ly shit," Stiles manages, because this is never the way his life turns out, but he'll certainly take it. He turns to regard Derek, who turns his own attention away from hipster-douche's retreating back to stare at Stiles, and, honestly, _Jesus Christ_.

It makes Stiles realize he hasn't really seen Derek outside of work – ever – and that his attraction to him in ill fitting chef's attire is nothing at all compared to what the clean-pressed, black button-up – rolled up to his elbows - and tailored slacks are doing to his dick. There's sparse lighting, for atmosphere or whatever, and it's just enough to highlight Derek's perfect cheekbones and the tempting line of his mouth, and it makes the dark of his eyes shine just enough. He looks almost unrecognizable from the chef who criticizes Stiles' plating skills and who drives him home almost every night – although Stiles would recognize him anywhere by the unamused scowl that seems to be permanently planted on his face.

Stiles realizes he's staring, probably with his mouth a little agape. Derek is looking at him like he doesn't know what to do with him, which is good because it's basically how Stiles feels too. He's also looking at him like he's a lamb who has wandered into a den of wolves to ask for directions, and Stiles doesn't _really_ know how to feel about someone looking at him like _that_, but he totally know how he feels about _Derek_ looking at him like that. Actually, Stiles doesn't feel quite as bad about staring awkwardly at Derek, because Derek is staring right back; so at least he's not the only one completely out of his comfort zone at the moment.

He's also still very much in Derek's personal space.

"Fancy meeting you here," Stiles says, after a minute, and he's a huge fan of the way Derek is still staring at him and still not moving away; almost like Stiles is an anomaly he needs to investigate. "You come to steampunk-esque hipster clubs often?"

Derek lets out a huff of laughter, like it's surprised out of him, and Stiles' heart leaps into his throat of its own volition. "That's your best pick-up line?"

"Uh," Stiles says, eloquent as always. He doesn't really know what to say to that – he wonders if it's inappropriate to suddenly ask if he can try again, because he wasn't aware he was being graded and he can totally do better. Probably. Actually, he probably can't, because he can't even think of anything to say with Derek all up in his personal space, with what could be the beginnings of a smile on his lips. "Yeah. Probably."

Derek laughs again, and the strange pull in Stiles' chest when Derek's moody exterior cracks and his smile is not going away – if anything it gets worse.

"What was all that about?"

Stiles blinks, and tries to remember the events before this exact moment, but doesn't try to look for the asshole who just vacated. "I spilled his drink on him, I guess. Whoops, my bad, etcetera, etcetera."

"Smooth."

"Yeah, well, I'm not exactly in my 'element' here or anything. I came with Danny and he abandoned me at the first sign of hot ass, so..." Stiles pauses in the middle of his sentence, and gestures at absolutely nothing around them. "I was kind of leaving in the midst of a self-deprecating monologue and I was too caught up having a quarter life crisis to really pay attention to douchenozzles standing in the way."

Derek shifts his weight from one leg to another. His arms are folded, relaxed, with his hands curled around his elbows. "You're leaving?"

Which is not what Stiles expects him to say. It almost sounds like disappointment, although Derek is always pretty careful to keep his voice level and devoid of all human emotion, so Stiles could just be wishing all of that into existence. Although, even if his voice is level, there's something about the way he's watching Stiles, like he cares what the answer is, and that's enough.

"Well," Stiles replies, and tries not to pause for too long while his brain tries to think up a response that could be considered nonchalantly neutral on the grounds of interest. "I could be convinced to stay."

-/-

Laura, apparently, is into burlesque. It's why Derek is there, and also why he's in the level above the main floor and as far away from seeing his sister shimmy around on stage as he can. He's probably there for moral support and possibly to drive her home; he's also probably there to remove the fingers of too-friendly patrons, but how he'll know it's necessary while he's hiding upstairs is a mystery. Her set goes on at eleven – which was ten minutes ago – and Stiles refuses the urge to make Derek uncomfortable by suggesting they go watch the show, or move from where they've re-situated themselves in the lounge next to the smoker's balcony.

Derek doesn't stare around at his environment like he's taking it all in, nor does he have any trouble finding them a place to sit – even with the room crowded. He's obviously been here before (perhaps a couple times, if Laura is invested in it) and he doesn't look out of place, or like he thinks someone might tap him on the shoulder at any moment and demand to know why he's in their club. Stiles, on the other hand, still feels a little lost.

"You said this wasn't your kind of place," Derek says, and it's strange for him to be the one to start up a conversation. "So what would you be doing right now if Danny hadn't convinced you to be his wingman?"

"At home, eating take-out Chinese and watching reruns of Futurama," Stiles guesses, because his life is not so complex. He shrugs. "I don't really have a life outside of work."

"I know the feeling."

"Oh, please. You have Laura, you live downtown – where _everything _is-"

"I spend less time in my apartment than I do in my car," Derek interrupts, and he leans back in his chair and huffs out a humorless laugh. "My entire life is this restaurant. I'm there every day – even if we're not open. It just never ends; there's always more to do."

"Um, hello? Sous chef over here – or, at least, pretty much a sous chef. You can ask me for help, you know?"

"Your fifty hour work week isn't enough for you?"

"Better we each have sixty than you have _seventy_. Or _eighty_ or whatever completely fucked up, inhuman amount you work," Stiles pauses, and then, "You know, this is what I want to do, too. This restaurant thing, I mean. I don't know if I knew that when I moved out here, but I'm sort of figuring my life out as I go and, I don't know, I've never really had a drive for anything before now. So, whatever you want to throw at me – I can take it. You're not going to scare me off."

"I don't really worry about that anymore," Derek says, and he considers Stiles for a moment. He looks like he's remembering something that already happened – or, maybe, something that continues to happen. "There were a few times in the beginning where I thought you'd had enough, but you kept showing up the next morning."

"I'm really difficult to get rid of. Like a zombie outbreak."

It earns him another laugh, another understated smile that twists his heart up in his chest like it's gotten stuck in his ribs.

Stiles wonders briefly if maybe Danny might have known about Laura's performance. He wonders if maybe Danny hadn't had ulterior motives with inviting Stiles out with him – if maybe he hadn't been a little intrigued by the idea that, if Laura were there, Derek might be there as well. Not that Stiles doesn't appreciate the fact that his friends are none-so-subtly implying that he should make a move on his boss, but, well, there are logistically problems with the whole deal.

For one, Stiles feels a little weird about flirting (or attempting to flirt) with Derek when his sister is in the next room. For two, he's fairly certain that the only reason Derek is in the building is to hover protectively around Laura between her sets and then take her home, which makes Stiles sort of an inconvenience; not that he thinks Derek could be convinced to come home with him – but in the mystical, magical world where such a thing might happen it is rendered completely moot by the fact that _his sister is with him_.

Derek turns his head to the bar, as though he's contemplating leaving to get a drink – and, honestly, Stiles has had plenty of time over the last year to dawdle about doing nothing; he's fairly certainly that no one ever got anything they wanted by sitting around and hoping that it fell into their lap on accident. He's also going to take this whole Derek-is-his-knight-in-shining-armor thing as a sign from the universe that this is his moment.

He opens his mouth to say something, but Derek stands up and brushes lint from the sleeve of his shirt. He glances at Stiles, who is not moving, and says, "Laura's set is almost over. I usually go backstage to wait for her; she'd be happy to see you."

Which is an invitation if Stiles has ever heard one.

He stands and follows Derek out of the lounge, away from the clouds of smoke drifting in from the balcony, and back down the stairs. The music gets louder the further down the stairs they go, and it sounds like something instrumental – something with live people instead of the sound system overhead – and the bottom floor is twice as crowded as it was the first time Stiles tried to make his way through the cocktail dresses and waistcoats.

The lighting is different now and there are still girls dancing on stage, but Stiles doesn't recognize any of them as Laura. Derek tells him that there's a lapse between her finishing a set and her actually meeting him backstage; he says she has connections to make, hands to shake, that sort of thing (and Stiles never thought about this being the sort of thing you would network with, but apparently this isn't the only burlesque club Laura frequents). There's something surreal about it, kind of like taking up making top hats in a society that doesn't really know what to do with them anymore, but it's as far removed from the restaurant industry as you could get and maybe that's why she's into it.

The crowds of people don't thin out until they're in one of the corners of the larger room, where a guy twice Derek's size lets them back behind a curtained door, which leads to an unfinished hallway that makes the music from outside the door sound like it's being funneled in through a pipe. The hallway is mostly empty – there are two girls waiting by a staircase, which probably leads up to behind the stage, who are strapping on admirably tall heels. They smile at him, and he waves at them and blushes to the tips of his ears, until Derek grabs his sleeve and tugs him down the hallway; there's giggling behind him, but he's more focused on keeping up with Derek's longer strides.

They make it down the hallway, and through another door that isn't being guarded by anyone, and then one more door that is large, and metallic, before there's a burst of cool air and, just like that, they're in an alleyway sandwiched between two buildings. Actually, it looks to be the same building, or maybe two buildings connected, but either way they're obviously both still part of Coil. There's a fence at either end of the alley, and a girl and a guy at one end smoking and chatting in quiet voices, but otherwise it's just a connection.

It's only four or five steps to the next door, and then they're back inside, before Stiles' fingers can even get cold, but the next hallway isn't heated – or insulated in any way – and Stiles realizes it's because they're in what looks like a warehouse. Or maybe what is half a parking garage, because there are certainly cars there, but there are also workbenches and supplies and a load of other things that Stiles doesn't know what they are. There are a couple of people milling about, working on whatever, and they don't even glance up as he and Derek pass them.

"Jesus, this is just a freaking maze," he mutters, and is only mildly aware of the fact that Derek is still leading him by his shirt sleeve. "How is it you're allowed to just roam where you please?"

"Laura's been coming here for six years," Derek says, leading him through another door. "Our godmother is the owner's daughter."

"Oh. Wow, okay."

The door leads to another hallway, or a maintenance entrance, or something similar. There are hundreds of cords and wires lining the unfinished walls, room floor to ceiling. Stiles realizes they've probably gone back into the main building, but he's so completely lost now that he's really just guessing; he's glad he knows Derek needs him to run the restaurant, or he might be mildly concerned that he is being dragged to a dark corner to be murdered viciously.

There's the faint sound of music again, through the walls, and he's pretty positive they're somewhere back behind the stage again.

"This is like... a kind, caring, brotherly side of you I never get to see," Stiles says, and there is a grin spreading across his face.

"If you're thinking of bringing this up on Thursday to get out of prep work," Derek warns him, "just know that everyone already knows. Laura invites everyone to the Christmas set – so expect your invitation in a month."

"Do I seem like the type of person to use the fact that you clean up nicely and escort your sister to and from her dance recitals as ammo?" Stiles asks, cheerfully. "It brings me inner peace to know you're actually a functional member of society. It makes me less suspicious that you're actually leading me to some dark alley to slit my throat for forgetting my mire poix ratios."

There's the familiar sound of his phone going off in his pocket then; the beeping of a text message that he's already ignored twice. He pulls it out of his pocket and isn't surprised to see the message is from Danny. _'Were you abducted? Should I call the police? Are you getting laid?_' it says, which Stiles supposes would be a difficult question to answer if he were actually in peril. He texts back, '_I'm onto your scheme, jerkface._'

Stiles stares at him for a moment, then wriggles his phone. "Danny also believes you have nefarious intentions with my body."

Derek stops moving then, quick enough that Stiles almost runs into his back, and turns around. Which makes him right smack dab back into Stiles' bubble of personal space, with nary a comfortable amount of breathing room to be found. There's a brief flush of heat across the back of Stiles' neck, up to the tips of his ears, that is stupid and frustratingly juvenile and completely unnecessary. The flicker of Derek's eyes over his face makes it look like he sees it too, which makes it worse somehow – because he doesn't want him to get the wrong idea, even if it's actually the right idea. He blames Danny for everything, which is a step up from blaming Scott for everything.

"Who says I don't?"

"That's an even worse pick-up line than mine," Stiles starts, and that's as far as he gets in terms of feeling embarrassed, because Derek leans a hand past him, to brace himself against the wall, and it's very distracting. Derek doesn't have to lean down to kiss him – just has to tilt his head a little, just so to catch the slight part of Stiles' mouth – and – Derek is kissing him, in some strange and cold hallway backstage, and – and Stiles has forgotten completely what he was going to say about misinterpreted intentions and clumsy phrasing and whatever else.

His body shifts a little from the awkward angle he's at, just a little, just enough that his hip is resting against one of the two-by-fours of the unfinished wall. His right hand is still clutching his phone, but his left is in the air next to them, fingers twitching slightly – like they want to press against the stubble across Derek's face but are afraid of making any move whatsoever.

The kiss is slow, and careful, almost like Derek is testing waters he's not sure are safe to swim in; Stiles wants to tell him _yes, absolutely, jump right in, _and he's still working out the best way to say that when Derek's tongue slides across his bottom lip and Stiles moans into his mouth. The noise is, apparently, a good enough sign as any. Derek shifts his weight enough that his body is pressing Stiles' spine into the frame, but keeps his palms against the wood behind him. Stiles throws caution to the wind and curls his free hand around the back of Derek's neck, where the short cut of his hair tickles against his skin and makes him want to card his fingers through the softness. There is an urgency in the way Derek is kissing him now, tempo increasing from what it had been a moment ago, and if he is trying to make Stiles lose his mind then he's well on his way.

One of Derek's hands moves from the wall to press against the small of Stiles' back, his other curling around the belt loop of his jeans, and he's hard against Stiles' thigh when he pulls him flush against him; Stiles drops his phone with an audible gasp – doesn't even notice it skidding across the floor – and then he does have both of his hands in Derek's hair. He moves one leg up to wrap around Derek's waist, which would be so much easier in looser fitting pants, but it's worth the gymnastics for the growl it earns him that vibrates down his own throat and seemingly into his toes.

The whole thing feels surreal; it feels like a dream. He doesn't know how long they stand there in the hallway, Derek slowly making him lose his sanity with the patient slide of his tongue through his mouth; it simultaneously feels like forever and like no time at all. It's the sound of something falling against the wall from the other side that jolts them back to the hallway, that finally has them pull apart in mild surprise; there's difficult-to-distinguish voices and laughter coming from the other side of the wall, and they're probably cleaning up the stage from a performance.

Stiles thinks he could staye the way they were for pretty much forever, but he's also a fan of the way Derek looks at him (surprised, more than a little affectionate) when he does finally let him up for air. Stiles is not breathing heavy, but his mouth feels strange and his heart is pounding in his chest. He doesn't know when he curled the fingers of his left hand around Derek's sleeve, but they're clutching the fabric so tightly he can feel his fingernails digging into his palms through the cloth. There's the sound of faint music and faint speaking through the wall, as another troupe goes on stage, but it's too muffled by plywood and drywall to make out.

"Holy shit," he manages, and he almost doesn't want to speak for fear of finding out this had been a really unfunny joke, or a test, or something else stupid. His mind is a whirl of emotions and thoughts, and his fingers are tingling with nerves and – and something that feels suspiciously like _excitement_. "Wow."

Derek doesn't move away – not really. He still has two fingers hooked in the belt loop on Stiles' jeans. "My phone is vibrating in my pocket."

"If that's a euphemism then I am totally down."

A smile, strangely fond, and Derek still doesn't move away in order to pull his phone out of his pocket and answer the call from his sister.

-/-

Her hair is styled in ringlets and her makeup is outrageous, which clashes quite neatly with the yoga pants and varsity t-shirt she obviously just changed into, but she is still very familiar all the same. The smile that lights up her face when she sees him is even more so. She flings herself onto him, arms around his neck, and no doubt losing glitter all over his clothes.

"My Stiles!" she says, and kisses him on the cheek. "I didn't see you in the audience!"

"Oh, you know, lots of people," Stiles says, and he's most certainly not looking at Derek over Laura's shoulder as he hugs her, because that would be weird. He flicks his attention back to Laura when she pulls away, smile still on her face, and gives her a smile back.

"Are you coming to the after party?" she asks. She glances at Derek for a moment, as though he has the answer, but he stares back at her with an unreadable expression and she ignores him to glance back at Stiles. "It's just down the street at Kaleidoscope. You should come. We sing karaoke, get wasted, make asses of ourselves. It's a lot of fun."

"Karaoke," Derek repeats, the same way one might say the word 'tapeworms', but Laura ignores him further.

Stiles laughs and gives her another squeeze at her waist. "I would if I could; it's twenty one and older after eleven over there. Last time I tried to get in I thought they were going to call the cops and everything – it was awesome."

"Oh, awkward," Laura says, and gives him another kiss on his cheek. "That sucks. We'll have to find somewhere that's not so stringent."

"Don't even worry about it. I was just going to go home and study for this stupid certification anyway."

"Well, Derek can give you a ride home," she offers, and she glances back at her brother, who is staring at the two of them as though he's not really seeing them. She frowns and waves a hand to get his attention; his eyes snap to her, but he doesn't smile. "You okay?"

Derek's eyes flicker to Stiles for a moment – just a moment long enough for a pit to form in the bottom of Stiles' stomach, because there's something uneasy there now that wasn't there like fifteen minutes ago when they were sucking face – and shrugs. "Yeah, just thinking. That's fine – I don't mind."

"I mean, Danny could take me home too. Or I could catch the train-"

"Don't be silly," Laura says, pulling her coat on. "Get in the car."

-/-

By the time they drop Laura off, in front of the building she's meeting her fellow performers at, Stiles has had just enough time to worry himself into a bundle of nerves. Because he wants to say something – he wants to say _anything_ – and he still doesn't know if he should. It seems like something is wrong, something that is either some of his business or none of his business or maybe all of his business, and he knows that if Derek doesn't want to talk about it then it's just going to make him shut himself off.

"We're still on for tomorrow, right?" he asks, just to make sure, just to say anything. Derek 'hums' an affirmative, which is not a great sign. "Okay, great. Awesome."

It's possible he's actively regretting kissing him, and Stiles is absolutely positive that's something he doesn't think he can handle. Because he's been going through about ten thousand different emotions since the moment Derek kissed him – denial, and excitement, and regret, and adoration, and embarrassment, and _fucking everything – _and he is literally going to make himself sick with the emotional stew he's making inside himself.

Derek parks in front of his building.

"Thanks again for the ride," Stiles says. He almost reaches to the area around his feet to grab his backpack – the one with his chef's coat usually stuffed inside – before remembering that it's his day off and he's not carting all of that around. He moves one hand to the door and leaves the other awkwardly in his lap. "I'll, uh, see you tomorrow, I guess."

"Yeah," Derek says, and he's got one wrist propped against the steering wheel, and he's staring at the dashboard instead of at Stiles.

He should say something – fuck, he should say _anything_, but he knows he's not going to. Because he knows Derek well enough to realize he's in the middle of some sort of internal battle, and maybe it's negative and maybe it's not, but it's probably something he wants to figure out on his own without Stiles all up in his business.

It doesn't mean it's not disappointing. It doesn't mean Stiles doesn't feel like someone has torn his heart out of his chest and ran over it with their car – then backed up and ran over it again. Which is funny because this isn't really a rejection, but it's also not acceptance, and Stiles doesn't really know what the fuck it is. He's internally an emotional wreck at the moment, and most of it he blames on himself. He blames himself for getting attached so fast, and he blames himself for taking everything so much to heart, and he blames himself for being so clingy that he needs to know _right this second_ whether or not Derek's unexpected kiss was a test, or desire, or _whatever_.

He wants to know answers to questions that he's pretty sure Derek doesn't have yet. It doesn't make him feel any less bitter.

Just, honestly, fuck everything. Every single night Derek drives him home the evening ends with Derek parked next to the curb, watching Stiles climb the stairs to his apartment, before pulling away and heading home himself. Every night Stiles think about saying something, anything, and doesn't. Mostly he's afraid of rejection, or rather the aftermath of rejection and the side effects that come with being rejected by someone you work with, and it keeps all sorts of questions and offers wedged firmly at the back of his throat.

There's already been so many things that have happened during the night that are completely out of the norm for them. Regardless of how he felt about it afterward, Derek did at least make some sort of move of interest, even if he's sort of been acting strange about it since. Maybe he's acting weird about it because he realizes it's a lost cause, because they're going to slip right back into this routine where they tentatively flirt with each other – in a way that could be considered banter and not flirting at all by outside (and inside) parties – and nothing will ever, ever change. Maybe he's acting weird because he thinks Stiles is not that into it, and that he doesn't want to take advantage of someone he's in charge of for most of the week, and there's no way Stiles is going to be able to sleep if there's even the smallest inkling that that might be the case.

"Okay, look, I'm just going to say this and then you can leave, or fire me, or whatever you want to do," Stiles starts, and he's staring at the gear shift instead of at Derek – especially when he can tell, out of the corner of his eye, that Derek is watching him now. "In case there was any sort of question or ambiguity in regards to intentions, let me just make it totally clear that I was _extremely okay_ with what went down earlier. Like, more than okay. And I'm totally okay if it never happens again-" well, not really, but he's not going to say that, "- and I'm super fucking _fine_ if it happens again. Just... I just want to throw that all out there."

There's the shortest-longest, most awful pause in the history of Stiles' life after that, during which he gets a good amount of time to truly regret owning a tongue and a mouth and things that form words. Especially when he keeps talking, because he cannot _shut the fuck up_.

"I kind of have, like, a huge, embarrassing crush on you," he continues and the nerves bunching up in his stomach are actually going to make him sick. "So I'd appreciate it if you told me outright if I'm a huge disappointment so that I can move on."

"Huge disappointment," Derek repeats, incredulous, and he's staring at Stiles like he's just grown three heads and is demanding a raise. "How can you possibly make me being an asshole out to be your fault?"

"I don't-" Stiles pauses, flailing just a _tiny_ bit, "I don't know! You seemed cool with everything, and then you suddenly weren't. What am I supposed to assume? Unless you were worried Laura might find out about what happened, but I seriously doubt that's it – and – oh," he pauses, and shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "Unless you're freaking out because you didn't know I wasn't twenty one yet-" a flinch, a look of guilt, _fucking Bingo _- "I mean, it says that in my file. The one you've had access to since I got hired."

"I spend as little time with paperwork as possible," Derek mutters, and he runs a hand through his hair again – a nervous tic that Stiles is starting to pick up on. "There are plenty of other reasons this is a bad idea-"

"But they're not ones you care about, right?" Stiles interrupts, again. "I'm nineteen, by the way. Hardly just out of diapers. I don't see how the difference between me being able to smoke and me being able to drink alcohol is a deal breaker."

"_Nineteen_-" Derek presses his forehead against the steering wheel, and groans audibly. "You're a _teenager_, that's just fucking lovely-"

"So it's okay for you to be an asshole to me and put me in a position of authority over the others in the kitchen, but it's not okay to make out?"

"They're _completely _different things, you don't understand-"

"No, I _don't_, because it's not a huge deal. I'm an adult, you're an adult. I don't get why this has to be an issue-"

"Because it _is,_" Derek exhales loudly and rubs the bridge of his nose. He inhales sharply, as though preparing for something. "It's an issue for me, okay? I didn't know before, and now I do, and it's not something I can just forget. Trust me, I would love to just pretend I didn't hear that," he pauses again, and looks at Stiles. His expressions is sharp, like he's more on edge than he's used to. "The last thing I want to do is go home, alone-"

"You can come up to my apartment right-the-fuck now," Stiles says, and he surprises himself a little with that – because he's been trying for months to work that suggestion into actual words – but his own surprise wavers in the the stunned look that replaces Derek's tense expression entirely. He looks completely taken aback, and Stiles is going to take that as a good sign; he doesn't usually get to surprise people, at least not like this.

Derek's mouth opens, then closes, and then, "You have no idea-"

Stiles leans closer, and hisses, "_You_ have no idea. You drive me batshit _crazy_. I could've come from your hands on my hips and your mouth on mine, in some cold fucking hallway-"

There's a warm, strong hand suddenly over his mouth, and this is probably the first time Stiles has ever seen Derek look like someone actually _broke his brain_.

"_Stop. Talking_," he manages, and Stiles doesn't think he's imagining that he's breathing a little harder. "_Fuck_-"

There's probably a special hell for people who don't do what they're told – one which Stiles probably has a reserved chair waiting for him – but it's not like anyone with any basic concept of pattern recognition couldn't know that by now. Stiles licks a carefully slow stripe up Derek's hand, completely unfair and not at all playing into whatever garbage responsibility Derek is trying to thrust upon him, and-

Derek pulls his hand away, just far enough to curve around the back of Stiles' neck, and then they're absolutely making out in the car, in front of Stiles' building. Which Stiles feels alleviates him from all further 'first-move-making' for the rest of forever.

-/-

Normally Stiles thinks he would be stressing out about the possibility of Derek judging the interior of his apartment building's foyer, and the staircase, and the inside of his apartment. There's nothing wrong with the foyer really – it's outdated, like everything else in the building, but supposedly that's 'vintage charm' or whatever – but he imagines that Derek lives in a penthouse, with doormen who ask him about his day, or some other such fantasy that's probably very far from the actual truth. Normally he would worry that Derek might say something about the junk mail littered around the mailboxes in the foyer, or comment on the fact that the 'Temporarily Out of Order' sign on the elevator looks like it's been there since the building was erected.

Under normal circumstances Derek might even do and say those things, but they're completely off their normal schedule and moving drastically into new and foreign lands. They make it up a single flight of stairs before Derek has his hands fisted in Stiles' jacket – before Stiles lets himself be pressed against the banister by a persistent, talented mouth. He thinks there's a very good chance he doesn't want his neighbors to see him making out with someone in the middle of the building – but there's also a horrible part of him that feels like he might actually spontaneously combust if Derek's hands are not on him at all times. The sensation is familiar in a way, but shiny and new like it always is when you're with someone different.

They make it up another flight of stairs barely stopping to breathe; Derek is carrying his jacket in one hand and pushing Stiles' off his shoulders with the other. It's one of the times that Stiles wishes he were on the first floor, preferably in the very first apartment. He's on the third floor and there are approximately four thousand steps between the first and third floors; at least, that's definitely what it feels like when he comes home at two in the morning, after being on his feet for twelve hours – or when he comes home with his arms loaded down with groceries and it feels like he's climbing the Matterhorn – or when Derek is trying to get him naked.

The apartment building was a house (or a mansion, or _something_) a long, long time ago – it's brick, and old, and all of the apartments are tiny studios that have had bathrooms and kitchens added as afterthoughts. The carpet on the stairs is dark red, with tiny diamond designs that do a pretty good job of hiding dirt and tracked mud, and it clashes quite nicely with the burgundy wallpaper and brick and wood panels. They break apart on the third floor landing so that Stiles can dig his keys out of his pocket. There's a rocking chair on the landing that someone has left there, with a 'free' sign taped to it, and Stiles pretends like he doesn't see it. It's probably haunted, or termite infested, and maybe if he pretends he doesn't see it then Derek will also pretend it's not there and they can ignore the fact that apparently people in his building just leave furniture in the middle of the hallway for other people to deal with.

They make it all the way to Stiles' door before he notices the look of conflict that's taken up residence across Derek's face again. It causes his stomach to lurch unpleasantly, and he pauses with his keys in his hands.

"Second thoughts?" he asks, hesitantly, because he doesn't actually want to be the guy that puts pressure on someone else.

"Why are you doing this?" Derek asks him, which is more than a little confusing.

"'This' is a little vague," Stiles replies, and he's mostly stalling to keep at bay whatever awful rejection he's about to receive. "Unlocking my door? I don't have lockpicking skills, no matter what Lydia has been telling you."

"_Stiles._"

"What do you mean 'why am I doing this'?" he asks, and lowers his voice a little when he realizes they're apparently going to have this conversation in this middle of the god damned hallway. "Have I been vague with my intentions?"

"I'm questioning your motivations, not your intentions," Derek replies. "You don't understand how important it is that I know you're sure."

"I've already thrown myself at your feet, so I don't really know how much more 'sure' I can present myself," Stiles says, and he gestures sort of desperately at Derek. "What are your motivations, huh? Why do you keep asking like I'm the one who's being indecisive? What do _you _want, Derek? Honestly?"

"I _want_ to do _criminal_ things to your body," Derek hisses at him, and Stiles grips onto the doorknob when Derek steps back into his space – too close and not close enough. "But I recognize that I am in a position of power over you – that I'm six years older than you – that there has to be some disconnect between us at work on Thursday and us _right now_ - and I _have to know that you're absolutely fucking sure_."

"I will sign my agreement in triplicate if you get in my apartment right now – _Jesus Christ-"_

It takes both of them to get the door unlocked.

-/-

He thinks that he doesn't want Derek to treat him any differently, but, when it turns out that Derek does, Stiles finds that maybe he does want it. Because when they're laying in Stiles' full size bed, listening to cars drive down the rain-slick street and the wind find its way through the edges of the windows, Derek treats him like something very intriguing he's just now noticed. He moves his fingers across every square inch of Stiles' skin, as though he needs to be sure there's nothing he's yet to discover. Down the curve of his elbow, across the soft skin from elbow to wrist, down to each individual finger. Stiles is exhausted, and comfortable, and warm; Derek's movements are exciting, but just on the edge of being innocent enough that his body can take it as a massage more than an invitation.

Some part of Stiles irrationally wishes he could have thought to clean his apartment before he left for Coil, but a more rational part reminds him that there's no way he really could have anticipated the night's events unfolding as they have. There's no way in the world he could have convinced himself he would end up back at his apartment with Derek, let alone naked in his bed, and, really, isn't it better for people to find out your true tendencies towards avoiding housekeeping rather than putting up a front of cleanliness to lure them in? Stiles is all about truth in advertising.

He realizes he's thinking about Derek in terms of him being on a need-to-know basis about the state of Stiles' apartment, which is weird. Because it's almost like he's thinking that this is a thing now, wherein Derek might end up in his apartment – naked – again at some point. Stiles realizes that the way Derek is tracing his fingers along his spine, careful and enamored, might be giving him the impression that he's not the only one entertaining the thought that this is something that could continue to happen. The way Derek is looking at him is overwhelming in a way; if Stiles could bottle it, and keep it, just to make certain he got to see it every night, then he absolutely would in a heartbeat.

He thinks about saying something, but he's been keeping his tongue wedged so firmly behind his teeth that he thinks too much might come out if he opens his mouth. There are a hundred thousand things it is probably not ideal to say right after sex, or right after sex with your-technically-boss, or even just in general when you're not absolutely certain if what you're doing is something that has lasting appeal or not. He doesn't want to seem clingy (even if he totally, totally is) and he definitely doesn't want to project-

Derek curls in against him, tucking his nose against his shoulder. His breath is warm, and his body is comfortable, and Stiles wants him there today – and tomorrow – and a hundred days later. It's a sort of frightening feeling, one that he can't control in the slightest, and he manages to squash it down enough to relax into Derek's chest. He doesn't even think to complain about being the little spoon, which normally he totally would.

_'Be here in the morning_,' Stiles thinks to himself, once, twice. He might mutter it aloud – or he might not – but Derek's breathing is sleep-even against his skin and there's no one to accuse him of it in the quiet of his apartment.

-/-

There is no heat in Stiles' apartment. It is the twenty seventh of October and it's brisk, windy, and the sound of the breeze through the tiny cracks in the windows sounds like a train whistling. It's cold – and so is Stiles' bed, especially where it's been made up on one side. There are no foreign clothes on the floor, and no note anywhere in the visible vicinity apologizing for hasty retreats, and Stiles stares at the ceiling and tries not to hate his life and everything in it. Aside from him the apartment is empty – empty and cold.

It's six in the morning and his phone is ringing. He consider chucking it out the window, but he hasn't done it the past year so he's probably not going to do it today. He answers it, even though it's his day off and he should just let it ring for the rest of forever; he answers because he is a weak, weak man.

"You're an asshole," he says, because there's only one person who calls him at ungodly times of the morning-night.

There's a slight pause on the line, although not silence. There's the sound of people talking, muted and far away, and it's echoing like there are twenty people in the kitchen – which is weird considering they're not open on Wednesdays. After a long minute there's a sigh and Derek says, "I know."

"No, I mean, more than you usually are. Like, you are the _biggest_ asshole. I may actually hate you at this moment."

"I'm not denying any of this," Derek assures him, and he sounds tense and wound tight.

Stiles exhales loudly, let's the sound echo through the phone line like it's the wind blowing. He stares at the ceiling, and hates himself too for asking – for even _caring_, "What happened?"

"Someone drove into the restaurant last night, around two in the morning."

His eyes shift from the ceiling downward, although it's impossible to see his phone with it tacked to his ear. "I'm sorry? _Into_ the restaurant? Do we have a drive-thru now?"

"Not that I was aware," there's another pause, as Derek says something to someone nearby – and Stiles realizes that the sounds he heard over the line were probably the police. "Anyway, there's a truck in our dining room. I need you here when you get a chance."

There are probably worse ways to start a morning, but Stiles is having trouble thinking of any.


End file.
